“The sorrow of looking into the inner workings of life”
The Essence of Kim Hoon's Prose


Novelist Kim Hoon's prose has been published.
This book is a compilation of timeless and memorable prose pieces from Kim Hoon's legendary prose works, "The Boredom of Earning a Living," "Regarding the Words Asking Which Side Are You On," and "Message from the Sea," which have long since gone out of print and made bibliophiles seek out used bookstores. It also includes approximately 400 new prose manuscripts.


This book contains Kim Hoon's past and present, from his family story to the writings he wrote on the streets during his days as a reporter, to the writings he recently wrote while waiting for a new language on islands in the East and West Seas, unable to endure the city.


The world and the harsh landscapes of his inner self that he records as he still writes by hand on manuscript paper, rides a bicycle instead of driving a car, and moves through the world with his two feet.
This book contains the joy of reading Kim Hoon's famous lines that are often recalled, such as "The Boredom of Earning a Living" and "Son, Don't Stick Out Your Flat Feet Again," as well as his "sad and astonished" writings about those in power who are caught up in partisan logic and making a fuss in an era when the country cannot protect its people, and the "essence of Kim Hoon's prose" that still touches the hearts of ordinary people who are "wandering through the hell of making a living."

*
As I bury my face in the thick steam and drink the hot soup, the sharp taste of the seasoning runs down my throat, sending shivers down my spine, and my intestines, twisted from the cold, melt.
It's sad, where does the market's origin lie?
---「Boiling Ramen」

*
In the morning sea of ​​Uljin, I felt ashamed of the trash in my heart filled with memories of the days I had lived.
I was pondering on the morning sea of ​​Uljin whether I could erase the memories and traces of life from my heart, just as waves and light break apart on their own, endlessly renewing themselves, and write a single sentence with the new words that come to me.
Oh, I have never taken a shit in my entire life, and I have piled up so much shit in my heart that it has already hardened like a rock.
Reflecting on the Uljin Sea, the diagnosis of my heart's illness was lifelong constipation.
The sea taught me the name of my illness.
The most urgent prescription for me would be to get rid of the shit that has accumulated in my heart over a lifetime and become new.
I was always exhausted from the sea in Uljin, overwhelmed by the incomprehensible strangeness of the sea.
From beyond the horizon, the new language I was waiting for never arrived, and the time I spent looking out towards the sea grew longer each day.
I worked little by little and wandered a lot.
My job was to write, but wandering around was more difficult than working.
The birds that had gone out to sea returned to the forest, and I returned to my room.
Countless blank spaces on manuscript paper were spread out on the desk.
---From "The Sea"

*
The peaceful, fishy smell of rice cooking in an electric rice cooker has choked me up my entire life.
This sorrow brings families together and forces people into the streets to earn a living.
There is no solution for rice.
It is not something that can be done by eating one or two meals, but something that must be eaten at all times until the day you die.
This is rice.
This is what they call a chilling meal.
---From "Rice 1"

*
Every meal has a fishhook in it.
When we swallow rice, we swallow a fishhook as well.
So the gills are pierced and pulled towards the rice.
Who is that sitting on the shore with his fishing rod, pulling me out?
That person is me.
This is why I can't take it out or go back or forward.
You have to be drawn towards food to earn more food.
---From "Rice 1"

*
I hate this world of labor inspectors who keep pushing people to work harder while insisting that work is sacred.
I love the wise self-defense of people who run away from the so-called 3D industries and preserve their dignity.
Therefore, labor inspectors of this world, please do not pressure people to work hard.
Please tell him to rest now.
I've already worked hard to the point where I'm in a mess.
---From "Rice 1"

*
For me, traveling is the work of observing the contents and expressions of the world.
The purpose of my travels is to preserve in my mind the scenery that cycles with the seasons, the way people live their lives while repeating work and rest, the passing forms of things passing by, and the feelings, smells, and textures.
---From "South Pacific"

*
I came back and sat down at my desk.
When I pick up a pencil, tropical forests and the sea unfold in my mind.
Even though I feel like I have a lot to say to the forest, the words just won't come out.
The seething words rush to the outskirts of my heart and fade away.
When I enter the forest, I find that I don't need to talk to the forest, but the unborn words still swarm inside me.
---From "South Pacific"

*
The young carpenter, hanging from the eaves of a house under construction and hammering nails, awes me with his beauty.
But whose life is not difficult and bleak?
As I look into the corn, its roots hanging out because the wooden barrel is too narrow, I console the old sorrow with a new one.
---From "The Carpenter"

*
From the distant red darkness, fishing boats emerge.
The fishing boats, worn out from the exhaustion of tiring labor, return to the port with torn fishing flags fluttering. Fatigue is life itself, so there seems to be no need to mention it separately.
---From "Line"

*
My daughter finished her studies, got a job, and received her first paycheck.
My daughter bought me a cell phone and gave me 150,000 won as allowance.
That child will live a hard life like me, eating only as a reward for his labor.
How sacred is the tedious, tedious routine of this life.
Even if there is no happiness or joy in that banal everyday life, how serious is this repeated cycle and repetition?
---From "Life 1"

*
The beauty of life is inherently so, there is no need for people to open their mouths and speak of it. However, last April, when flowers were falling and the shouts of life were spreading throughout the world, I remember and speak of the great ship that suddenly fell into the sea and the lives that died there because I am still alive.
I just, barely write.

---From "Sewol"

*
Everyone I met on my travels was either injured or broken.
They were people who could not escape the pain that the times inflicted on humans.
But within those broken people, there were still parts that could never be broken, still intact.
It is always tearful to find faith in life in a life that has been uprooted and torn apart.
---From "Hometown 1"

*
When I rode my bike along the Seomjin River on a spring day in my early years, growing old alone, the mountains sprouting new leaves were reflected in the water, and my bike felt like it was riding on a path to the sky.
Ah, there was another world within this unbearable world! How arduous was this insignificant life.
---From "Leaves"

*
It was a cold and dark winter.
There was no hope.
It may not be something that can be divided into one side or the other, but people were divided into two groups.
There were people who had given up and people who had not given up yet.
I guess I was probably on the side of those who gave up.
At that time, I was a young man of twenty-seven.
Even those who did not give up accepted the reality that there was no longer any hope in this world.
Those who did not give up were sending desperate gestures toward things that did not exist, things that could not possibly exist.

---From "Park Kyung-ni on February 15, 1975"