Part 1 | Memory: The Hippocampus
Part 2 | Temperature: Somatosensory Area
Part 3 | Emotions: The Limbic System
Part 4 | Logic and Judgment: The Frontal Lobe
Part 5 | Enlightenment: The Hypothalamus
Part 6 | Life: With Your Whole Body

“Where does pain begin and what scars does it leave behind?
“A profound sci-fi thriller that asks questions that are never easy to answer.” - Kim Cho-yeop

Author Jeong Bo-ra's new novel, her first in four years
Highly recommended by novelist Kim Cho-yeop and translator Anton Heo!

Dasan Books presents a new full-length novel by author Jeong Bo-ra, who made the world aware of the appeal of the K-genre by being a finalist for the Booker International Prize.
The full-length novel 『On Pain』, published four years after 『Red Knife』, was serialized to rave reviews on the reading platform Milli's Library and became a hot topic.
In particular, this full-length novel is the first thriller the author has written, stepping out of the world of horror and fantasy where he has mainly resided, and it is a novel that stands at a turning point in the 'Jungbora World' where the author will encounter new possibilities.

Unlike his previous work, which dramatically revealed the crazy and wild, bizarre side of the world and gave readers the thrill of a twisted story, his new work, "On Pain," is desolate and chilling.
And there is a strange warmth.
Perhaps this gap comes from the intersection between this novel and the reality we live in.
The novels of Jeong Bo-ra, which once offered a terrible and beautiful revenge on those who created a world that was somehow wrong, now speak of "let's eat well and live well" in a rough and crazy world.
Let's stop destroying ourselves by reliving the painful past and move towards a world where we can 'live with dignity in the way we choose.'
That is why we feel warmth in this novel, which is imbued with the determination of a person who fought against the world and dreamed of overthrowing it.

“No joy, no rapture, no transcendence, perhaps even salvation,
“Whenever humans cannot understand, interpret, and accept, it is all suffering.”

Tae, the perpetrator of the pharmaceutical company bombing, and Kyung, the victim who lost her parents in the attack.
Han, who remains loyal to the sect to survive, and Yeop, who endlessly searches for the source of suffering.

The advent of the perfect painkiller, non-addictive and side-effect-free. With NSTRA-14 becoming a universal painkiller, the paradigm of pain shifts.
But as the pain disappears, people who seek pain instead appear.
A new religious cult claims that feeling pain makes us human and terrorizes pharmaceutical companies.
After a terrorist incident that shook the world, a horrific murder occurs in a quiet religious community.
The victims of the incident, whose bodies were covered in torture marks and whose bodies were found to have large amounts of drugs, were all leaders of the religious sect.
In order to uncover the real culprit, the detectives bring in Tae, the terrorist who was serving a life sentence, into the world.

The memory of 'Tae' begins at the classroom.
'Tae' grew up in a religious facility with his older brother 'Han'.
Tae's belief in serving suffering and burdening everyone with the burden of suffering only resulted in innocent victims.
The parents of 'Kyung', who ran a pharmaceutical company, also lost their lives at this time.
With Tae's help, the detectives capture Han, who has left the church and is living in seclusion, but release him without revealing any truth.
Detectives investigating a wasteland near a lake, where a pharmaceutical company has withdrawn and all the people have left, discover an illegal drug manufacturing facility and 'Han', who has been hiding after being released from detention.
'Han' strongly insists that he is not the murderer, and 'Tae' also says that he does not seem to be the culprit, but countless pieces of evidence point to 'Han' as the culprit.
Han is locked up in the detention center again.

As weather warnings sound for impending tornadoes, another murder occurs.
"Han," who had been locked in a detention cell, was found dead. The CCTV stopped working for a mere three minutes, and no one entered or exited the detention cell before or after that three-minute period.
Even if you search through all the CCTV installed in the police station, everyone's alibi is perfect.
Except for one person, 'Yeop', the psychiatrist in charge of 'Tae'.
The detectives try to find the doctor in the CCTV footage, but at that moment, a tornado strikes and the police station building loses power.
After a while, the tornado passes and when the lights come back on, the doctor is nowhere to be found.
Tae, who was left alone in the detention center, thinks of him.
Questions about terrorism, a sobering attitude toward the church, special insights into suffering… … .
'Yeop', who seemed to know everything about 'Tae' and the 'pain' surrounding him. What on earth is his true identity?
What did he hope to gain from the fight between the religious community and the pharmaceutical companies?

“Everyone’s life is different and their experiences of suffering are different,
Each person's response to pain was also different.
“His pain was his own.”

Another way to enter the 'Information World'
A deep and long exploration of suffering, crafted into a novel

Despite the premise of a powerful painkiller that changed the paradigm of pain, the various pains the characters had to face in their daily lives are very familiar to us.
This is because the desire to move towards a better place and a higher level, even if it means exposing one's body and mind to harsh environments, is still valid for people living in Korea today.
We have endured, persevered, and persevered through the painful times we endured to reach our goals, calling it the 'meaning of life.'
Author Jeong Bo-ra, who has keenly captured the twisted aspects of this 'normality', disassembles and reassembles the meaning of suffering from medical, philosophical, and historical perspectives, ultimately presenting it as a single conclusion.
Let's put those painful memories, those moments deeply engraved in our bodies and minds, into the past.
Let's take a step forward into the future we were unable to reach.

The fear of a life of constant pursuit, where you can't even add a specific explanation after 'if you don't do it'.
There is no social safety net to care for the elderly who collect waste paper, and once you are a non-regular worker, you are a non-regular worker for life. In this age of centenarians, I am afraid that I will be left in poverty, cursing my tenacious life that will not die.
So, I worked really hard and lived hard, not even sleeping or eating, not knowing where I was going.
But then I realized that it wasn't something that could be achieved just by trying hard.
-From the author's note