Park Seolyon’s Capitalists Must Starve is a fictionalised account of real-life labour activist Kang Juryong, the ‘Woman in the Sky’ who embarked on a solo protest in 1930s Pyongyang, when Korea was occupied by the Japanese. Kang gained infamy by climbing on the roof of the Ulmil Pavilion after her rubber factory cut the pay of its women workers.

Capitalists Must Starve, translated by Anton Hur, tells Kang’s story before she ended up on the roof; how she and her husband join the anti-Japanese Liberation Army in Manchuria, before deciding to become a ‘modern girl’ in Pyongyang upon her husband’s death.

Kang begins working in a rubber factory, where she leads her fellow women workers on strike, and delivers what Park imagines her famous speech would be atop the pavilion roof.

Capitalists Must Starve is available from Kinokuniya.

Capitalists Must Starve

Park Seolyon
2025
Tilted Axis