The Martyred by Richard E. Kim

My first Korean-American novel.

Kim dedicates this work to the memory of Camus, whose work helped him overcome "the nihilism of the trenches and bunkers of Korea" during the Korean War.

The influence of Camus is evident. "In my profession I have seen many men die. As a doctor I can explain why or how my patients die. But God knows I can't explain the reason for all these men dying in war. There is no rational explanation when you get down to the bottom of it. It doesn't make sense. Yet somehow it must make sense" (p. 162).

​The war is an absurd event, where man's condition, his thirst for clarity in a meaningless world (Camus said something like this in one of his formulations of the absurd) is thrust upon with an unrelenting force, and Kim's protagonists persist in their lives despite living in such senseless circumstances.

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