Author's Note … 007

Part 1: Short Stories

Another month later, we cross the snowy mountains… 015
The Comedian Who Went to the Moon… 075
Deep Night, Giraffe's Words… 137
In front of the sea of ​​Nanju… 171

Part 2 of a novel

The last of seven years… 201
Postscript│Life After… 441

Part 3 Poem

About reinforcement… 449
I remember that hill… 456
We say it's beautiful and we say it's beautiful... 458
Carp in a winter pond… 460
December pours down… 461
Graduates… 462
Time to read Jeong Ji-yong's complete works… 464

Part 4 Prose: No library is too small for me.

With the forest, I wish to stay there for a long time… 471
A happy ending I once dreamed of… 477
I like pearls… 483
It's a heart that was born, so it will soon be shattered... 489
What Failures Gain: Kindness… 495
A gift I received because I didn't know… 501
Things I like… 508

Short stories: "If I Go Another Month and Cross the Snowy Mountains" and "The Comedian Who Went to the Moon"
"Deep Night, the Giraffe's Words" "Before the Sea of ​​Nanju"

This book contains four short stories personally selected by author Kim Yeon-su among the 55 short stories in six short story collections, from her first short story collection, “Twenty Years Old” (2000), to her most recent short story collection, “Such an Ordinary Future” (2022).
As the author explains, “These are my favorites among the six short story collections I’ve published so far,” these four novels hold a special significance in Kim Yeon-su’s world of work.
"If I Go Another Month and Cross the Snowy Mountains" ranked first in a survey of literary critics, literary journalists, and bookstore MDs asking for the "best short story of the 21st century." It depicts the story of a man who experiences "all aspects of love" through climbing a snowy mountain to understand the death of his lover.
“The novel also displays outstanding skill in the way it constructs a three-dimensional adventure: the adventure of existence, the adventure of meaning, and the adventure of writing, which are essential for a good novel,” and the work “The Comedian Who Went to the Moon,” which won the 7th Hwang Sun-won Literary Award, also painstakingly depicts someone’s life left with gaps.
The voice of a daughter who is finally reconstructing her life after her once-popular comedian father vanished in the most traumatic way for his family comes from none other than her ex-boyfriend.
To borrow the expression from the novel, “I think it is not the story but the subtle textures felt in the voice that tell us what kind of life that person has lived” (p. 104), someone’s life may not be revealed through their direct statements, but in the silence before a new story begins, where the voice breaks and stops.
In “Deep Night, the Giraffe’s Words,” silence is also an absolute condition for the characters.
This work, which begins by illuminating a dark street where the noise has subsided, movingly depicts how a 'rock-solid hope' can emerge from the dark and deep frustration through 'an introverted twin sister and a mute autistic boy.'
"In Front of the Sea of ​​Nanju" interweaves the past and present of two people who reunite after 30 years, and brings back the story of someone who lived even longer ago. It speaks with a desperate and persuasive tone about the "second wind" that unexpectedly blows toward us after we have been knocked out by life and fallen.


I envy you guys.
You have experienced all the aspects of love.
Even death.
_「If we go another month and cross the snowy mountain」, page 48

I heard about the loneliness of a man who went missing in the desert one day, the desire of a woman who ran toward the desert to understand the man, and the light and darkness, heat and coolness, loneliness and sadness of the desert that the man and the woman would see.
_「The Comedian Who Went to the Moon」, p. 134

We can't see it, but there must be something like a giant ear on top of our heads.
So, no matter how trivial and insignificant the words we say, those ears will listen to them all.
That doesn't mean it can bring about an impossible love or take away the sadness inside me, so you could say it's just a big, useless ear.
But with those ears, the words we each mutter to ourselves in the deep night are neither lonely nor sad.
_「Deep Night, The Giraffe's Words」, pp. 154-155

It's all the same whether you hold on and hold on and fall.
But falling down doesn't mean it's over.
There's a next one.
You'll know when you get knocked out and lie on the ring floor.
When you fall like that, you can feel with your whole body that the air is different from before.
As the world slowly recedes, the disappointment of those who supported me is palpable, and I feel like I'm alone in this world.
Just then the wind blew.
To me.
_「In Front of the Sea of ​​Nanju」, pp. 194-195

The novel "The Last of Seven Years"

The full-length novel 『The Last of Seven Years』(2020) encompasses all of Kim Yeon-su's core keywords of novels such as youth, love, history, and the individual, and depicts the life of the poet 'Gihaeng' who faces a world that has changed rapidly since the Korean War.
It can be inferred that Gihaeng was modeled after the widely known poet Baek Seok, who was known as a poet in the 1930s and 1940s, but after the war, he was asked to write poetry in line with the party's ideology in the North, and he worked on translating Russian literature into Korean.
Even in a desperate situation where he cannot write poetry as he wishes and must relearn “how to live without hope and dreams” (p. 260), Gihaeng tries to hold on to poetry, but he repeatedly runs into the wall of reality.
No matter how fervent one's desire for poetry, if the weight of reality that weighs down on an individual is overwhelming, will that desire ultimately be frustrated?
What can a writer do in the face of a helpless reality?
What happens to the heart that can never be abandoned, the dream that never comes true?
"The Last of Seven Years" is a novel that is like a long answer to these questions that Kim Yeon-su gave after going through a dark period as a citizen and writer.

Still, we have dreams, so our harsh life is barely bearable.
Sometimes I walk among the birch trees and think about my simple dreams.
They are small, light, white dreams that seem like they will fly into the sky if you blow on them.
_The Last of the Seven Years, p. 422

Poem "On Reinforcement" and six others

It is widely known that author Kim Yeon-su first debuted as a poet, but these six poems will be a special gift to readers who have had difficulty encountering his poetry except for his debut work, “On Ganghwa.”
The six poems being revealed for the first time this time are works written between 1993 and 1995, allowing us to meet Kim Yeon-su as a poet in her twenties, as we have never seen before.


Prose: "Together with the Forest, Stay There for a Long Time" and six other essays

During the pandemic, author Kim Yeon-su has been visiting the library more often than ever.
From the city library in Gyeongju to the open library in Cheongju, if we follow the author's leisurely pace, we will find various libraries located all over the country waiting for us.
The sight of people reading books passionately in silence and writers broadening their minds through books they stumble upon on the bookshelf naturally leads us to understand why libraries are necessary and why we should read books.


Standing among the trees and looking up at the evening light as it grows dark with them, it is a soothing sight for the world-weary mind.
It's about observing what remains for us even after everything is over.
This is the joy of an evening walk.
From the beginning, I didn't want to live happily.
No matter how difficult and cumbersome it was, no matter how unappreciative or misunderstood it was, I wanted to live so that I could die happily.
_「A Happy Ending I Once Dreamed of」, p. 478

※ The above book is a popular edition of 『The Essential Kim Yeon-su』, a limited edition product exclusively available at Kyobo Bookstore. The content is the same, but the specifications have been changed from hardcover to paperback.


For a long time I was obsessed with the expression 'the end of the world'.
I found out why after writing the novel, “The Last of Seven Years.”
When we reach the 'end of the world', we are given a natural understanding that comes from the perspective of looking back on the entire path we have taken.
This understanding makes the end a new beginning.
_From the author's note