Inhye Lee

Sonagi is a Korean word that means "rain shower." It is also the title of a short story by the author Hwang Sun Won, one of the most accomplished writers in modern Korean literature. The story, which has a simple plot—“a boy in the countryside meets a girl from the city”— is one of Hwang's best-known short stories and has also become an inspiration for many artworks. Through these interpretations, the idyllic and natural setting that two young protagonists explore on foot has been visually re-created. My project aims to identify the literary geography of "Sonagi" and construct a literary map of the story from the standpoint of data collection and visualization. By doing so, this project provides a spatial and data-based way to explore the text, which may not be obvious when reading the text only. Through this endeavor, the project poses and answers questions: How do readers picture a fictional space when reading literature? Does uncertainty in text allow room for creative interpretation for the audience? What role can visualization play in enabling readers to understand literature? Expressions that indicate locations are collected from the text and used to visualize the fictional space of the story. inhyelee-data.github.io/sonagi