“It Is the Job of Novels to Ask After Someone’s Well-Being”

detail

*It has been translated using AI

“It Is the Job of Novels to Ask After Someone’s Well-Being”

There is a middle-aged man living alone in a rural village in Gangwon Province, looking back on his past. For him, life had been like a chore. He did only what was necessary to make a living. He avoided love and paid little attention to relationships. His younger sister’s suicide, his mother’s battle with cancer, and his father’s sudden death. Only after these events, and only after they had passed, does the man revisit the lives of his family, which he had kept at a distance. And he comes face to face with his own reflection, one marked by nothing but repeated regret.
As he spends his days sifting through memories that have settled indifferently into the strata of time, disaster strikes. A massive wildfire engulfs the village. As he evacuates, an old woman catches his eye. She says she left behind her dog, Neureongi, because she wanted to save only herself, and then she runs into the flames. At that moment, the man’s long-delayed emotions burst out all at once. The sense of loss and mourning that had been deferred finally condenses into tears and pours out like a waterfall.
That is the ‘time lag between loss and mourning’ depicted in Baek Ga-heum’s short story “Across the Divide.” In a recent written interview with Maeil Business Newspaper (MK), Baek said, “We tend to think of time as flowing only from yesterday to today, and from today to tomorrow, but in our minds and memories, it is different.” He added, “A past from decades ago and something that happened yesterday can be restored in our minds as memories of the same size in an instant.”
His sixth short story collection, “Across the Divide” published by Munhakgwa Jiseongsa, has recently been released. The book brings together eight short stories, including the title work. Since debuting in 2001 with the short story “Flatfish,” he has illuminated a world filled with violence and absurdity through a raw gaze, moving between the social margins and state power in works such as the short story collection “The Crickets Are Coming” (2005), “Assistant Manager Cho’s Trunk” (2007), and the novel “Aquamarine” (2024). In this collection as well, he does not let go of stories about a ‘cruel life,’ including an elderly man caring for his wife, who has dementia, while enduring the hellish time of his son’s disappearance in “Parting,” and a middle-aged woman who, after her family was torn apart and scattered, belatedly traces the life of her father, who died in Georgia, in “Morning in Udabno.”
This collection, however, mostly keeps its gaze on what comes after the event. The protagonists in these stories do not immediately accept someone’s death or absence. Only much later do they realize that those who left also lived through their own joys and sorrows in the same flow of time. They also realize that they themselves did not live through that time alongside them.
“The emotions that come with realizing loss or separation too late seem to bring restoration and continuity to what has been lost. To realize that something has disappeared is to know that it once existed. It is only natural that all of that unfolds within the surface of life. In the end, I think the feeling of loss is less about regret or sorrow over what has been lost and more about proof that it still ‘was.'”
Most of the eight short stories in the collection were published around 2022, just after the country began to emerge from the impact of COVID-19. It was immediately after Korean society had undergone a collective period of mourning following the once-in-a-generation pandemic. In a world full of the dead left behind by the living, what can fiction offer to human beings who must accept loss as their fate as mortal creatures?
“A novel cannot save anyone. Asking questions, I think, is the most a novel can do. Questions like, ‘Something like this happened to someone else. Are you okay? What do you think?’ But there are times when simply asking if someone is okay, or how they are doing, brings great comfort. That feels like the job of a novel to me.”
He has also been a professor in the Department of Creative Writing at Keimyung University since 2017, and is now in his 25th year as a writer since his debut. Asked about the meaning of the time that has passed and his plans ahead, while also teaching the next generation in academia, he offered a plainspoken answer, much like the ‘job of a novel’ he described.
“There is no special meaning. Time that accumulates may simply make a person more seasoned. If I have one wish, it is to keep writing as I do now. I hope I will have the stamina to finish the work I am currently writing and to complete the full-length novel I am preparing, as planned.”
[Choi Hyun-jae]

This article has been translated by GripLabs Mingo AI

#

Most Read News

• 1
  

  Mr. A, in charge of human reemploy

• 2
  

  As Samsung Electronics drew market attention by posting record quarterly operating profit, Japanese

  2026-07-08 10:28:59

• 3
  

  Veteran actress Jeon Won-ju confessed that she had written a will. On the 7th, she revealed it on he

  2026-07-08 08:06:20

• 4
  

  Securities firms are seeing mixed views on Samsung Electronics, which recorded a “surprise earnings

  2026-07-08 11:01:08

• 5
  

  U.S. President Donald Trump said on the 8th that the tentative agreement with Iran was “finished,” b

  2026-07-08 17:23:22

• 6
  

  A bill has been submitted to the National Assembly that allows companies to pay some of the bonuses

  2026-07-08 13:07:15

• 7
  

  SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, which have recently plummeted, have recovered their plunge and are

  2026-07-08 10:18:45

• 8
  

  Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong has begun a push into the artificial intelligence (AI) sem

  2026-07-08 16:30:23

• 9
  

  The local stock market is facing a “Black Wednesday.” While the KOSPI and KOSDAQ plunged more than 5

  2026-07-08 17:07:18

• 10
  

  Defending champion Argentina advanced to the quarterfinals with the best match in the 2026 North Ame

  2026-07-08 06:19:27

Haircare brand Kérastase is opening a pop-up at Olive Young Hongdae Town.Illit’s Minju attended the

The production presentation for ENA’s new Monday-Tuesday drama “Dream to You” was held on the aftern

TWICE’s Sana showed off her toned, healthy physique in a photo essay.On the 7th, Harper’s Bazaar rel

(G)I-DLE released its ninth mini album, “We made,” and is kicking off promotional activities.At a sh

Singer Bada transformed into a hot girl.On the 5th, Bada posted several photos on Instagram with the