Chapter 1: The Story of Purun
Chapter 2: The Story of Irun
Chapter 3: Romilya's Story
Chapter 4: Baloo's Story
Chapter 5: Another Story of Purun
Chapter 6 Everyone's Story
Epilogue

Author's Note

“Like a seed, like a root,
The story will explode out.”

A story that calls them to us and the past to the present
The world of the yellow moss, a world that is sure to be reached, even if a little slowly

People often say that pain dulls with time, but if we look closely at this saying, it implies that while the sensation of pain may dull with time, the wounds never disappear.
Because it is a pain that is still ongoing for us, Hwangmogwa's delicate approach shines even brighter.
Hwang Mo-gwa, who has consistently written science fiction, is particularly presenting science fiction that is firmly rooted in reality.
Rather than metaphorizing reality through stories of distant places or the distant future, it reveals us now through stories of the present or the near future.
It is in the same context that 『Green Letter』, set in a fictional country and fictional era, is read as our own story.

In fact, much of "Green Letter" is inspired by real events.
The practice of gifting leaves as letters was modified based on the culture of the Jingpo people in China, and the title 'Green Letter' was taken from the ambiguous meaning of the paper notifying the refusal of a US visa application due to insufficient documents, etc., called 'Green Letter'.
It is no coincidence that historical events can easily be recalled from various episodes appearing in the novel.


So, whether the author intended it or not, 『Green Letter』 is ultimately a way of bringing world events into our current story, and a work of calling past history into the present.
His novels always start here and now and expand outward.
And even if it's a little slow, it comes back with certainty and accuracy.
This is how the world of the yellow moss reaches us.


“My dear, I hope you are well,
“I hope you are safe and at peace wherever you are.”

A heartbreaking history of love engraved in the veins of a leaf
The story of those who could not stay and had to leave

Irun is busy interpreting the leaves of the Vitis japonica that his great-grandfather had painstakingly grown.
Vitis vinifera, a plant that engraves messages from its owner into its leaf veins, is a rare species with only one genus and one species worldwide, and it is now difficult to find even that.
The last of the indigenous populations of the Ice Mountain Country were completely wiped out by the heat wave and tsunami that struck a few years ago, and even the custom of the Kujin people, who carved hearts into leaves and gave them to others, was dismissed as superstition and disappeared from the world.
The leaf left in Irun's hand was sprouted from a seed obtained from a tree grown by his great-grandfather 'Purun', and is the last remaining Vitisdia in the world.


"Plants talk? Does that make sense?" "Do you believe the story of Kujin who tells fortunes with leaves?" "Are you Kujin?" Despite all the prejudices surrounding these words, Irun was able to focus on interpreting them because of a story he heard from an old man in the village of Butdong, his great-grandfather's hometown.

However, the only way to decipher the leaf is to find the 'detox key' that has been passed down among the Kujin tribe.
One day, a suspicious email arrives to Irun, who is finding more and more strange combinations of words as the days go by.
An email from a stranger who claims to have the decryption key and is willing to give it to you.
It's hard for Irun to believe his claim that the already extinct Vitisdia forms a forest near the equator, but he does indeed send the decryption key.
Irun decides to go and meet him in person, who introduces himself as 'Balu'.


“Please leave my story.

“A story about a life that endured in a place where no one could see.”

The lonely fight of those who were unknown or forgotten,
Comfort and consolation that brings back lost time

In Hwangmo's novels, 'history' appears as a major context.
The past is now irreversible.
A past that can never be changed.
Hwang Mo-gwa revives that time in the novel, asking readers who have forgotten the past one more chance.
If you were in this situation, what choice would you have made? What kind of life would you live after you cross this time?
Therefore, the experience of reading a novel by Hwang Mo-gwa is both an experience of gaining shared memories and an experience of having personal memories.
This is probably why the story of Purun and Romilya, who lost their language and country due to someone else's will and were forced to wander far away, is read not simply as the meeting and parting of lovers, but as the history of a nation.
Because the pain experienced by an individual in the flow of history is no longer limited to that individual.


This novel features the Kujin people, a people with a language and culture but no state.
This people, strangely familiar to us, are being exploited by neighboring countries for their people and resources, and even lose their name and language.
The lives of those who live as foreigners in a country divided into three parts, despite it being their homeland, resemble ours, who lost their country and language, and who are still divided today.
The process of those who were driven out of their hometown and into unfamiliar places, those who were despised simply for existing, finding their own language through the leaves of 'Vitisdia' will provide comfort and solace to readers who had no choice but to console their frustration with the hypothetical 'what if'.