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Author's Note

A time when we crossed over but did not fully cross over
Reuniting with the hearts we've lost

Nari, who has been running a home workshop making candles and soap for a long time, finally opens 'Nari Workshop' in Saekyung Plaza, a commercial building.
Soon after, COVID-19 spreads uncontrollably, and 'Sumi', one of Nari's customers and a friend of Nari's who raised children of the same age, is diagnosed with the virus.
As the movements of confirmed cases were being shared one by one, Sumi's movement path was revealed, Nari Workshop received attention and other stores in Saekyung Plaza also began to see fewer customers.
The moment a reporter who came to cover the difficulties small business owners are facing due to COVID-19 asks Nari a question, Nari is taken to the hospital due to hyperventilation.
At the hospital I went to, I heard an unexpected story.
Nari had previously suffered from tuberculosis and still had latent tuberculosis.
Nari, who was wondering where she might have contracted tuberculosis, thinks of Aunt Manjo, who took care of her for a while when she was young.
I remember Mrs. Manjo taking tuberculosis medicine.
Then, Nari recalls a time in Yeoan that she had forgotten.
The parents who ran a sloping apple orchard and Mrs. Manjo who worked there.
And the fact that the workers in Mrs. Manjo's team were the people from 'Tansan Village' where tuberculosis patients lived together.


Meanwhile, two days before Soo-mi is confirmed positive, Na-ri runs to her daughter Eun-chae's call and sees a screen on the monitor.
It was a Zoom class screen from the academy, and one of the screens was showing a door that was open about a foot wide, emitting sounds from the house.
It was the sound of something being struck and broken, and the person broadcasting the video was none other than Seo Ha, Sumi's daughter.
Seo Ha broadcasted the sound of Soo Mi breaking the living room in real time.
Nari urgently calls Seoha and takes the child to Nari's workshop.
Sumi, who came to the front of Saekyung Plaza, cries and calls out to Seoha, but Nari does not open the door to the workshop.
Just two days later, Sumi tests positive, and without being able to apologize or make any excuses, she breaks up with Seo-ha and is quarantined for over two months.
For Soo-mi, who had always been obsessed with Seo-ha and oppressed her, breaking up with Seo-ha was bound to be a great frustration.
Su-mi shows hostility toward Nari, who was close to Seo-ha and knew a lot about her, and who ultimately had a great influence on her breakup with Seo-ha. Nari also feels hatred toward Su-mi, who is overly oppressive towards her child.
The moment the two people who were barely holding back their intense emotions met, Nari suddenly suggested to Sumi that they go to another mountain.
Let's go together to the apple orchard that Aunt Manjo is working on.
Will the two be able to truly see each other's hearts on that trip?

“I hoped that we could endure each other’s pain countless times.
“I hoped to face it even if it meant embracing fear.”

The emotions of Nari and Sumi, who understand each other but also despise each other, are passionately intertwined, while the energy radiating from Seo-ha and Eun-chae, who each grow in their own way, is incredibly refreshing.
Also, during Nari's childhood, when she was always busy eating snacks without her mother's knowledge and burying the bags in the apple orchard, the loving words of Aunt Manjo, who supported a corner of her heart like a tree providing shade, are rough and cheerful.
This is why Eunmi Choi's sentences, which delve into the characters' hearts and reveal their depths, feel light and affectionate rather than heavy.


Eunmi Choi lets the characters' emotions become intertwined and collide, revealing their bare faces.
It touches upon the feelings that can only be understood when we face each other, embracing the emotions that surge and crumble, with “incredibly delicate and breathtakingly sophisticated” (Hwang In-chan, recommendation).
The author's voice, speaking through the character's mouth, saying, "Look," "I didn't give up" (in the text), makes us look into our own hearts that we wanted to hide.
It also examines in detail the disconnection and alienation that were already permeating our daily lives before the disaster, only made visible by the pandemic.
Have you ever destroyed a part of someone's life out of love, or isolated someone in the name of safety?
The warm and beautiful heart that Choi Eun-mi unleashes in her novels, which never gives up and reaches out to others, will make us face each other now, here, and forever.
"Encounter" should be read with care, as it does not leave a single person's pain and sorrow entirely to their own account. (Jo Hae-jin, recommendation)

Author's Note

At some point, whenever I see people passing by or imagine a new character, I develop the habit of thinking about his 2020 first.
Where he slept and worked that year, who he was closest to and what he feared most.
What pattern will the past three years leave on that person's life today?

"Encounter" originated from the short story "Here We Encounter" published in 2020.
I serialized some of it in the quarterly journal 『Creation and Criticism』 throughout 2021, and continued writing the remainder of the series until the spring of 2023.
The main time period of "Encounter" is from summer to winter 2020, following the spring of 2020 of "Here We Encounter."
But just as the others we sensed during the pandemic were people who had lived before, and who will live after, I wanted this novel to embrace as much time as possible.
(…)

There are times when I pass by people at the crosswalk without thinking and then look back.
Whenever I encounter people in buildings and on the streets, I am sometimes struck by the fact that everyone there has lived through 2020.
I hope that this novel can reach the people who have lived through that time today, tomorrow, and the day after, like an unfinished story.

Summer 2023
Choi Eun-mi