Hwang Jungeun’s Savage Alice is an uncanny, haunting, and terrifyingly beautiful novel that tells the story of Alicia, a homeless crossdresser, who lives in the center of a large city—presumably Seoul. Even though he is “dressed perfectly” in a navy blue, close-fitting jacket and miniskirt, he smells so badly that the people near him feel offended and anxious. Every night, Alicia comes back to his home village situated in the southwestern suburb of Komori. What does he do there? Nothing. Nothing that is, except remember. Looking up at an immense and luminous forest of high-rise apartment buildings, he dreams. More precisely, he immerses himself in memories from his childhood, a time when he lived with his family in the same village, an expanse of empty lots and rice fields dotted with houses.

One of his most precious memories is that of his younger brother, who was considered an “idiot” by his neighbors as well as by his classmates. As happens with two brothers who are close, the younger brother often bothered him with endless questions. The brothers remind us of two puppies playfully nuzzling each other. In fact, the presence of dogs in this novel is striking. Alicia’s family always keeps their dogs locked up in a cage, in hideous conditions. The dogs have not been given names and their black paws are soiled with excrement. Seeing these miserable animals, Alicia feels deeply ashamed. Even though they are covered in fur, they remind him of “naked humans.”

It seems significant that when Alicia thinks about Komori, the first image that comes to mind, even before his own home, is that of the filthy dog cage. Near the end of the novel, there is a passage describing the nightmarish image that haunts Alicia: a dead dog on a footpath between rice paddies. The dog has been dead for a long time but “it never disappears; it is always there; it shrinks up, dry as a mummy, then swells up again, lifting its four limbs now and then.” 

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