‘Art on Fire’ by Yun Ko-eun (Review)

It’s currently a very chilly April morning in my corner of the world, but in my latest book, it’s considerably hotter, with fires out of control across a wide area. Not the best time, then, for someone to head that way for an extended stay. However, as it turns out, the weather is the least of our friend’s problems. There’s no time to worry about fires on the horizon when you have a dinner date with a rather unusual host, and with the prospect of your work going up in flames… ***** Yun Ko-eun’s Art on Fire (translated by Lizzie Buehler, review copy courtesy of Scribe Publications) introduces the reader to An Yiji, a Korean artist whose career isn’t going anywhere – until, that is, she’s invited, out of the blue, to accept a residency at the Robert Foundation, a mysterious American organisation that promotes up-and-coming artists: The book spent multiple pages explaining the Robert Foundation’s efforts to discover unique artists. I was one of the pawprints they had supposedly…