““Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables was required reading in Korean schools, as was Alphonse Daudet’s short story, “La Dernière Classe,” for both my parents’ and my generation. Set in the Alsace in 1870 or 1871, around the time of the Franco-Prussian war, Daudet’s story features a schoolteacher, Monsieur Hamel, who announces that it is to be his last day teaching, because all the French staff are to be replaced by Germans. His last lesson of the class is to impress on them the beauty of the French language. He tells the class, at great personal risk, that as long as you keep your language, you will never be a slave.””
