Traces of Time 007
Summer Villa 041
Quiet Incident 073
Heavy snow 107
I don't want to go home yet 139
Brown Sugar Candy 169
205 in a very short time
Acacia Forest, First Kiss 235

Commentary | Hwang Ye-in (literary critic)
267 Out of My Little World

Author's Note 288

Includes winners of the Contemporary Literature Award, Munji Literature Award, and Young Writer Award!
Baek Su-rin's third novel collection

The incomprehensible blessing we encounter in the summer of life
The dazzling trajectory of those who finally escape my small world

Baek Su-rin has established herself as a representative writer of Korean literature through her short story collections, “Falling in Fall” and “The Dismal Light,” and her novella, “Dear and Dear.”
Baek Su-rin, who has earned the trust of both the literary world and readers with her irreplaceable, beautiful sentences and delicate plots, presents her third collection of short stories, 『Summer Villa』.
"Summer Villa," which contains the winners of the Contemporary Literature Award ("I Don't Want to Go Home Yet"), the Munji Literature Award ("Summer Villa"), and the Young Writer's Award ("Quiet Incident" and "Traces of Time"), is a collection of works that captures the dazzling trajectories of those who finally escape their small world, through the deep and slow gaze that only Baek Su-rin can.

The author, who arrived at 『Summer Villa』 while still embracing the world of 『The Dismal Light』, where he hoped to “become someone who remembers those who have disappeared and gathers their traces with a longing heart,” and the days of 『Falling in Fall』, where he hoped that “beauty would come into my writing someday, among the days when I move forward hesitantly and reluctantly,” now wishes to “suspend hasty judgment, face the events unfolding in my heart, and record them carefully” ('Author's Note').
Covering the period from the summer of 2016 to the spring of 2020, the eight stories are filled with panoramas of landscapes unfolding before the author's eyes and in his heart, the blessing of the "incomprehensible" encountered in the summer of life, and the exquisitely elegant other side of life, revealed when one layer of veil is lifted.

The most elegant way to talk about the wonders of life.

If you're looking for something like that, you should read this novel.
Park Yeon-jun (poet)

Now Baek Su-rin's novel stretches out both arms and uses the muscles she trained herself.
It goes on to the heterogeneity of the mother tongue, motherland, and the world of motherhood.
_Kim Geum-hee (novelist)

The narrator of Baek Su-rin's novel is inevitably cautious.
Tracing the seasons and years surrounding the “decisive scene” (“A Quiet Incident”) that these thoughtful characters have experienced will be a key reading method and experience in reading his novels.
A 'decisive scene' does not simply mean the climax drawn by the writer.
Rather, it is closer to a journey of looking back and facing the time difference and blind spot that could not be avoided because one was thoughtful and did one's best.
The title works, "Summer Villa" and "Tracks of Time," are stories about the truth behind the scenes that were not seen at the time, arriving after a long time.
The author depicts the process in which 'I' and 'Sister' ("Tracery of Time"), and the couple 'Jua' and 'Verena' ("Summer Villa"), with different living conditions, come together like an eclipse and then drift apart again, and finally arrive at a vivid past.
For the narrators in the novel who choose the courage to face the vivid feeling of loss rather than to cut themselves off, loss can no longer be a wound.

For speakers who have no choice but to live with a sense of exile, whether in their home country or a foreign land, such as Baek Su-rin, who constantly recognizes her inner minority as a "transfer student," "Asian," and "woman" and examines her own position, every land they stand on will inevitably be a foreign land.
Of course, that boundary is not easily erased, but characters who constantly recognize the other person within themselves allow the other person's life into their own instead of judging it, and conversely, characters who are wary of daring to become others and become lonely are born.
"A Quiet Incident," a still life painting depicting a family that seems to have crash-landed in a redevelopment area and the loneliness and limitations of a person who feels alienated within it, and "For a Very Short Time," a painting of a man who keeps returning to that day due to the tragedy caused by his "good deed" of helping an elderly person struggling one night, are all works that meticulously embody the ethics of boundaries that the author has long grappled with.


Meanwhile, “I Don’t Want to Go Home Yet” is “a surprising work that elegantly stretches in a different direction” (Kim Geum-hee) within this collection of short stories.
This novel, which contains the process of desires that were imprisoned in the body gradually igniting, will be a work that will allow you to witness a very unfamiliar beauty.
Additionally, "Heavy Snow," "I Don't Want to Go Home Yet," and "Black Sugar Candy" can be read as a trilogy that uniquely portrays the women and women's desires that Baek Su-rin seeks to portray.
These novels contain the elegant journey of women who no longer desire the desires of others, but rather rewrite their lives as “a special narrative” (“Brown Sugar Candy”), a story that no longer needs a mirror.
"Acacia Forest, First Kiss," included at the end of the collection of short stories, is a novel that is more than enough to close a period in Baek Su-rin's life.
Through a story that seamlessly moves between the past and present, in endlessly lyrical sentences, and that crosses between innocence and provocation, our time will also be filled with “a fascinating narrative made up of things I could never have imagined.”

“The words exchanged with someone touch people’s emotions like beautiful music,
The fact that those who converse with us are led to a strange world they have never been to before.”

Now, with good-natured curiosity, he carefully examines the boundaries that divide him from others.
While seeking a space for coexistence without ignoring complex conflicts.
(…) I will continue to write the story without being too optimistic or pessimistic, and without being tempted to flatten the characters for easy understanding.
This is precisely why Baek Su-rin's story is necessary for us today.
_Hwang Ye-in (literary critic), commentary on “Escape from My Small World”

The narrators of Baek Su-rin's novels are no longer delicate or weak.
They are more sensitive than anyone else to the changes in the world, slowly face the cracks, and painfully feel the disharmony in relationships.
With that sensitivity, rather than choosing to ignore, they quietly become stronger in seeking coexistence.
The steps and lips of those who seek to move toward love without falling into easy understanding or hatred will always be heavy.
That is why the traces of wavering and quiet passion that Baek Su-rin depicts in search of her place are always accompanied by beauty and sublimity.

The scenery captured when looking at the world with clear eyes, and thus the gaze that prepares for the beyond and the next, sometimes even contains determination.
Rather than presenting clear principles, the sparkling eyes that seek to carefully record the complex and beautiful world can only be depicted with light.
The delicate sentences, like stepping stones between time, and the plot of emotions woven even more tightly will lead us out of my cramped world.
The courage to reveal your wounds and mistakes is the path that takes you into a new, wider world.
From the novel “The Night of Little Snow, When It’s Snowing” (“Quiet Incident”) to the summer villa of Little Heat, may all the longing, sadness, joy, and incomprehensibility encountered along the way become blessings.

Author's Note

Nevertheless, I still believe that there is nothing else we can rely on to survive in this world other than understanding and love, and I probably wrote these novels with that belief in mind.
For me, the way to love is to face the events unfolding in my heart and record them carefully, without making hasty judgments.
(…) And right now, at this moment, you who is reading this book.
I know you are someone who always strives to move towards love, despite the temptation to settle into a world of comfortable disgust.
And I sincerely hope that my novels can provide some strength to your struggles this summer.


On the threshold of summer 2020,
Baek Su-rin