prolog

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Epilogue

That Heart-Pounding Summer / Han Areum

Author's Note

Kim Ae-ran's first full-length novel: the hope of the next generation of Korean literature.

Since her literary debut in 2002 at a young age, Kim Ae-ran has won awards such as the Hankook Ilbo Literary Award, Today's Young Artist Award, Shin Dong-yup Creative Writing Award, Lee Hyo-seok Literary Award, Kim Yu-jeong Literary Award, and Young Writer Award with just two short story collections, 『Run, Dad』 and 『Saliva Gathering』, and has emerged as a representative writer of the next generation of Korean literature. Her first full-length novel, 『My Heart-Pounding Life』, has been published.
This work, which has been a hot topic among literary circles and readers since it was serialized in the quarterly 『Creation and Criticism』 from the summer of 2010 to the spring of 2011, deals with the dazzling story of youth and love between the youngest parents and the oldest child.
The thrilling moments of life and sparkling insights into love, captured in simple and fresh sentences, will make you smile and burst into laughter throughout the reading, and at times, you will find yourself unable to hold back tears.
This is a beautiful and lovely novel that makes one agree with the question, “Is it possible not to love Kim Ae-ran?” (Shin Hyeong-cheol, “Ethics of Downfall”).


What does it feel like to be young, what does it feel like to be old?

In a town where construction of a tourist complex is in full swing, there are parents who suddenly had a child at the young age of seventeen, not knowing what he would become when he grew up.
Young parents set up their home amidst anxiety and excitement, and 'Areum', who was born with the attention and love of others, grows up to be brighter and more energetic than anyone else.
However, Arame has a disease called progeria, which causes her to age faster than anyone else before she can fully grow up.


Aram, who has the mind of a seventeen-year-old boy and the body of an eighty-year-old, much older than her parents, is a child who loves reading and writing, and whose only friend is a sixty-year-old grandfather living next door.
As she has to endure a time that feels relatively long, always surrounded by pain and death, Ara naturally learns and feels about life.
Despite dealing with the unusual subject of progeria, this novel is not particularly interested in depicting the tragic story of the journey.
It is about capturing life's brilliant moments and gaining universality by bringing about profound reflections on life and time.

This year I turned seventeen.
People say it's a miracle I've survived this far.
I think so too.
Among people like me, it is very rare to find someone over seventeen.
But I tend to believe that greater miracles always exist within the ordinary.
Living an ordinary life and dying at an ordinary age—I've always believed that was a miracle.
In my view, the miracle was the two people before my eyes, my mother and father.
They were my maternal uncle and aunt.
They were the neighbors, an old lady and a man.
It was midsummer and midwinter.
But I wasn't.
(Page 47)

Aram decides to write about her parents' meeting, love, and the story of her birth and give it to them as a gift for her eighteenth birthday.
By adding imagination and exaggeration to real stories and mixing them, you create your own novel.
This novel, written for a day that may never come, is the sum total of the language and sensibility that Areum, who was unable to attend school, cultivated in her own time, and is an effort to bring back the bright youth of her parents that she lost because of her.
This novel is also a wish to bring to life the life of oneself born in this way through a story.

The stories of the two people overlapped, clashed, and distorted, and entered me.
And it rippled like cosmic gas on the verge of explosion.
I was thinking of making something with it.
Of course, no one knows what it will be.
Without even knowing it.
So that beauty can become beautiful.
Don't let your puppies die the moment they are born, handcuffed.
So that beauty can be born well.
As I listened to my parents' stories, I longed for them to end, but at the same time, I was anxious that they would really end.
So? Really? What is that? Why? Wow! He chirped excitedly.
They say that as you get older, you like talking more than listening, but seeing me nagging my parents like this, I must be a boy.
(Page 94)

A miraculous youth, a heart-pounding love begins.

Arum, who knows that her family is no longer able to afford the hospital bills, volunteers to appear in a documentary program to raise funds.
Thanks to this, Areum is able to receive hospital treatment and begins exchanging letters with a girl of the same age named Seoha, after appearing on television. She cautiously opens her heart to Seoha, who is in a similar situation as her and is hospitalized with bone cancer.
With that child, Ara welcomes a moment of her infinitely short youth with a pounding heart.
This excitement that came to Areum, who had always imagined youth only through her parents' stories while observing life, was fresh yet bright, just like the youth we all experienced.


Although it was hard to see clearly because of the shadows, it was clear that he had a 'young' hand.
The condition of the photo was not very good.
It looked like it was taken with an old digital camera with low pixels.
But that rough, old texture actually gave it a cozy feel.
I stared at one of the child's hands for a long time.
Then at some point, I just placed my hand on the monitor.
Then the child's hand and my hand vaguely overlapped.
The warmth was transmitted through the LCD screen, perhaps because the computer was on.
(Pages 254-55)

With the vitality and motivation she found again through Seo-ha's letters, Areum resumes writing her novel, which she had put on hold.
But the limited time given to Arum was in store for her with harsh events that no one could have anticipated.
Now, in a desperate situation where she could lose everything, Areum wants to preserve the beautiful times she and her parents had together forever.

“When someone loves another person, there are standards for recognizing that love.”
Mother's eyes were swollen shut.
“That means he’s trying to run away.”
“………”
“Mom, I… I know that love is real because I know you tried to run away from me.” (Page 143)

A delightful and touching drama featuring lovable characters

Arum, who never ceases to explore everything in the world while maintaining a distance from her own tragedy and dealing with life humorously, is portrayed as a lovable and impressive character that can be compared to any recent novel.
Arum's words and actions, Arum's sentences sometimes bring laughter that makes you roll over and a pleasant smile, and sometimes bring heartbreaking sadness.


“So what do you want to be, Areumin?”
"I am……"
After a long pause, I opened my mouth shyly.
“I want to be the funniest kid in the world.”
“……Can you explain a little more?”
“Someone said there are many ways for children to please their parents.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Healthy things.
Good relationship between brothers.
Being good at studying.
Being good at sports.
Being popular with friends.
Getting into a good job.
Getting married and having a baby.
“Outliving your parents… …isn’t that a lot? But when I think about it, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“………”
“So after thinking about it for a while, I came up with an idea.
“Then I will become the funniest kid in the world.” (Page 173)

As the introduction states, “This is the story of the youngest parents and the oldest child,” the novel is not only the story of Areum facing a sad fate, but also the story of Daesu and Mira, who gave birth to a child at the immature age of seventeen and raised him, and who, as time passes, are still immature but “grow more mature as they experience the world through the eyes of their immature child.”
Daesu and Mira's youth, which makes us look back on the obvious but easy-to-forget fact that our parents also had immature youth filled with dreams, desires, curiosity, loneliness, and all of these, is a fun read and an element that makes "My Heart-Pounding Life" even more attractive and rich.

Even people who had been frowning at the two just a moment ago began to chime in.
These days, it's really hard to see children.
It was like those who were desperate to be close to the soft and bright 'life'.
My mother's face was filled with the confidence and pride of a woman of childbearing age.
It was the bare face of a youth who appeared to have 'real power' without knowing what kind of expression he was making.
(Page 37)

After all the stories are finished, the book continues with the novel "This Heart-Pounding Summer", which is about the first meeting between her father and mother.
The effort to capture the world they saw and learned on their own with their own sensibilities and language is evident throughout, and this story, which finally bore fruit, allows us to recall the days of their youth, and all of ours, a time that was both bleak and passionate, in a comical, beautiful, and happy way.
Daesu, who was frustrated and couldn't do anything but "take down his pants by himself" while worrying about how to live, and Mira, who was wandering with frustrated dreams and shouting "I will never do it with a man from this town," had a secret summer, which is the beginning and the end of all these stories.

The wind, sensing their story, which could not possibly be 'nothing', foreshadowed the future of summer, and returned to the place it had already passed, gently stroking the heads of the two.
The two were so absorbed in each other's breathing that they didn't notice anything... ...but they thought the wind was nice.
And to make the season last, he prepared to leave for another place.
The sky was high, and clouds, changing shape every moment, passed over the cicada's smooth eyes.
(Page 352)

Beautiful sensibility, heartfelt comfort
Hope for Korean Literature

In this way, author Kim Ae-ran portrays painful yet beautiful youth and life with her characteristically lively prose and sparkling insight.
Rather than offering authoritative advice, this story, told through the maximization of novel aesthetics by a contemporary writer, may be a warm comfort that truly resonates with our times.
The humor scattered throughout, the brilliant sentences that often catch your eye, and the tears and deep emotions that burst out at certain moments within them—all of this is enough to serve as proof.

“I don’t know what you should do, but I know what you shouldn’t do.”
“What is that?”
“I’m not sorry.”
"why?"
“That a person can grieve for someone,”
"yes."
“It’s not common……”
“………”
“I am glad that you are my sorrow.”
“………”
“So you,”
“Yes, Dad.”
“When you grow up, you will surely become someone’s sorrow.” (Page 50)

What is even more surprising is that all of this came from the new starting line of a writer who had just written his first full-length novel.
Kim Ae-ran, a leading young writer who has garnered the attention of our literary world over the past decade, has proven with this work that we still have so much to look forward to from her.

It's a very tough and difficult life, but we still have youth, love, and a future.
And then there's this thrilling novel.
Kim Ae-ran has returned to us with these hopes through this captivating work.
I can confidently recommend "My Heart-Pounding Life" as the most exciting novel I've ever read, and I believe it will allow many people to experience a new, true taste of novels.