A gentle heart
 |
Description
Book Introduction
Modern Literature*Future Youth Literature Award, Social Criticism Children's and Youth Story Grand Prize
Award-winning author Ha Yu-ji's latest work!
Author Ha Yu-ji's novel, "The Heart of Gentleness," was published by Tteundol Publishing.
Author Ha Yu-ji, who has been receiving attention in the youth fiction world by winning two literary awards in a row in 2025, has released her latest work, "The Heart of Gentleness," which is the story of middle school student Onhwa who faces her own wounds in order to hear the "last words" from her father who suddenly leaves this world one day.
The author, who has presented youth with a burst of fun and a warm resonance with works such as 『Dokgo's Tail』, 『The Suspects of Group 3』, and 『My Name is Oran』, has embraced the hearts of all those passing through the dark tunnel of life with all his might through this work.
“We who remain in life and the world must somehow move forward.
“I believe that at some point the tunnel will end and a bright sky will unfold.” (From the Author’s Note) I recommend this novel to anyone who needs comfort and courage.
Award-winning author Ha Yu-ji's latest work!
Author Ha Yu-ji's novel, "The Heart of Gentleness," was published by Tteundol Publishing.
Author Ha Yu-ji, who has been receiving attention in the youth fiction world by winning two literary awards in a row in 2025, has released her latest work, "The Heart of Gentleness," which is the story of middle school student Onhwa who faces her own wounds in order to hear the "last words" from her father who suddenly leaves this world one day.
The author, who has presented youth with a burst of fun and a warm resonance with works such as 『Dokgo's Tail』, 『The Suspects of Group 3』, and 『My Name is Oran』, has embraced the hearts of all those passing through the dark tunnel of life with all his might through this work.
“We who remain in life and the world must somehow move forward.
“I believe that at some point the tunnel will end and a bright sky will unfold.” (From the Author’s Note) I recommend this novel to anyone who needs comfort and courage.
- You can preview some of the book's contents.
Preview
Detailed image
.jpg)
Into the book
My mom doesn't ask me if I'm okay, doesn't assure me I'll be okay soon, and doesn't do a good job of hiding the fact that she's not okay either.
Maybe there's no need to hide it.
If Dad was drunk, Mom was exhausted.
A faint smell of alcohol lingers in the bedroom that my mother uses alone.
When I told this story to Hanbyeol, she replied, “You’re just like my dad!”
He said that when he came out to go to the bathroom at night, he could hear lights, music, and the sound of glasses clinking through the crack in the bedroom door. He said that adults who have a hard time living sometimes do that.
My mom wouldn't clink glasses with my dad's ghost in the living room, and that wasn't the point of the story in the first place, but Hanbyeol sometimes does that without any real sense.
--- p.19
When I was in elementary school, tunnel construction was in full swing, and dynamite exploded underground several times a day.
Every time, I felt the classroom shake with a dull vibration, as if someone was hitting a huge drum or gong.
I didn't hate the feeling, and it was even a bit strange to my young mind.
But my mind changed after the tunnel was completed and vehicles began to pass through it.
A strange sense of unease welled up in my mind as I thought of cars passing beneath my house, beneath the bed where I lay and the dining table where I sat to eat.
It was the same when I was at school or walking around the neighborhood.
Just as the ground subsided, revealing the lower part of the building buried in the flowerbed dirt, like the Treasure Apartments, the world seemed to tilt a few degrees, revealing its true nature.
Do other people also live with their anxieties and restlessness hidden somewhere a few inches deep? Like me, my mother, and the residents of BaeBae Apartment?
--- p.32
"Why are you digging? Why are you stirring things up? What did Dad ever do to you that you're acting like this now? You didn't even care when he was alive!"
In the darkness, I looked at my mother, at the direction she was standing.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, a faint silhouette appeared, but I couldn't be sure it was my mother.
Where on earth is Mom? Why does she seem so distant and distant? If Mom or I were to die tonight, what would be the last words we'd utter to each other?
The last words I said to my father were lost without being recorded.
I don't remember at all.
--- p.92
Sister Woorim said that.
He said that he didn't know that people's words and glances could cause him so much pain.
I didn't know I was that kind of person.
Sister Woorim said that.
"Isn't that right, Sister? We're all like that."
We are all like that.
A person who is hurt and torn to pieces when faced with the malice and ridicule of others.
A person who sometimes wins by fighting, but sometimes loses without fighting.
A person who hates the person who hurt them and ends up hating himself.
My father was that kind of person too.
My father hoped I would never find out, but I ended up finding out.
The fact that my father is that kind of person.
Too late, and also too soon.
--- p.125
Tears burst out.
Even at the funeral, I sobbed quietly, but today, my whole body burst into tears.
From the depths of my heart, I hear a boom, a boom, an explosion.
I bent over, buried my face in my knees, and cried.
The cicadas all became quiet and listened to my cries.
As if they were mourning belatedly in their own way.
I wanted to become a large bird with strong wings and fly back to that day and time.
I wanted to fly up carrying my falling father on my back.
I wanted to convince him not to do this, that everything would be okay, and to just endure it a little longer.
Maybe there's no need to hide it.
If Dad was drunk, Mom was exhausted.
A faint smell of alcohol lingers in the bedroom that my mother uses alone.
When I told this story to Hanbyeol, she replied, “You’re just like my dad!”
He said that when he came out to go to the bathroom at night, he could hear lights, music, and the sound of glasses clinking through the crack in the bedroom door. He said that adults who have a hard time living sometimes do that.
My mom wouldn't clink glasses with my dad's ghost in the living room, and that wasn't the point of the story in the first place, but Hanbyeol sometimes does that without any real sense.
--- p.19
When I was in elementary school, tunnel construction was in full swing, and dynamite exploded underground several times a day.
Every time, I felt the classroom shake with a dull vibration, as if someone was hitting a huge drum or gong.
I didn't hate the feeling, and it was even a bit strange to my young mind.
But my mind changed after the tunnel was completed and vehicles began to pass through it.
A strange sense of unease welled up in my mind as I thought of cars passing beneath my house, beneath the bed where I lay and the dining table where I sat to eat.
It was the same when I was at school or walking around the neighborhood.
Just as the ground subsided, revealing the lower part of the building buried in the flowerbed dirt, like the Treasure Apartments, the world seemed to tilt a few degrees, revealing its true nature.
Do other people also live with their anxieties and restlessness hidden somewhere a few inches deep? Like me, my mother, and the residents of BaeBae Apartment?
--- p.32
"Why are you digging? Why are you stirring things up? What did Dad ever do to you that you're acting like this now? You didn't even care when he was alive!"
In the darkness, I looked at my mother, at the direction she was standing.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, a faint silhouette appeared, but I couldn't be sure it was my mother.
Where on earth is Mom? Why does she seem so distant and distant? If Mom or I were to die tonight, what would be the last words we'd utter to each other?
The last words I said to my father were lost without being recorded.
I don't remember at all.
--- p.92
Sister Woorim said that.
He said that he didn't know that people's words and glances could cause him so much pain.
I didn't know I was that kind of person.
Sister Woorim said that.
"Isn't that right, Sister? We're all like that."
We are all like that.
A person who is hurt and torn to pieces when faced with the malice and ridicule of others.
A person who sometimes wins by fighting, but sometimes loses without fighting.
A person who hates the person who hurt them and ends up hating himself.
My father was that kind of person too.
My father hoped I would never find out, but I ended up finding out.
The fact that my father is that kind of person.
Too late, and also too soon.
--- p.125
Tears burst out.
Even at the funeral, I sobbed quietly, but today, my whole body burst into tears.
From the depths of my heart, I hear a boom, a boom, an explosion.
I bent over, buried my face in my knees, and cried.
The cicadas all became quiet and listened to my cries.
As if they were mourning belatedly in their own way.
I wanted to become a large bird with strong wings and fly back to that day and time.
I wanted to fly up carrying my falling father on my back.
I wanted to convince him not to do this, that everything would be okay, and to just endure it a little longer.
--- p.188
Publisher's Review
“If tomorrow were the last day of your life, what would you want to say today?”
A heartbreaking and lovely story of gentleness, flapping powerfully at the edge of despair.
Onhwa, a third-year middle school student, has no time to enjoy the stormy days of adolescence.
Mom and Dad, who suddenly quit their jobs and started a pizza chain, fought often, and the apartment they bought with all their savings was tilting due to the underground tunnel construction that had started nearby, to the point where even the door wouldn't close properly.
“If you think that only my mom and dad’s relationship was on the verge of collapse, you’re making a fool of our family’s bean curd index.
My father and I were also near Namnam.
“We were so awkward and distant that we would skip even the eye contact when we passed each other.” (Page 16) Onhwa’s daily life, where she would go back and forth between school and academy to avoid her tired mother and drunk father, was the very definition of dullness.
Until 'that day' comes.
One day, my father suddenly jumped from the roof of his apartment and took his own life.
Onhwa, who was guarding the funeral home with an incomprehensible shock, belatedly receives a text message from her father.
The message asking her to come to the apartment rooftop because they had something to talk about was not delivered to Onhwa until a day after her father passed away due to a communication error.
Having wasted the opportunity of a lifetime, Onhwa finally begins to unravel her daily life, the story of her father, mother, and herself, all tangled up in a slanted apartment.
This novel brings the social issues we only see on the surface in the news into our homes.
This story, which cannot be fully captured in news headlines such as “Suicide rate is the highest among OECD countries” and “Suicide is the leading cause of death by generation,” is depicted from the perspective of middle school students, a socially vulnerable group.
It's easy to talk about the results, but it's difficult to talk about the process.
As a novel that tells the story of the process of "The Gentle Heart," it clearly shows the reason why a huge event that completely changes one's life had to happen, providing food for thought not only for teenagers but also for adults.
It further questions the meaning of life.
“If tomorrow were the last day of your life, what would you want to say today?” (p. 151)
“I will answer the world’s questions that my father answered with death with my life.”
A gentle heart, a gentle mind that creates a life that cannot be tilted
Onhwa wants to solve the huge challenge he faces through interviews.
Together with her neighborhood friend, Woorim, who is like a real sister to her, she goes around the neighborhood asking questions to both children and adults under the pretext of winning prize money by participating in the 'Our Neighborhood UCC Contest'.
If you were to die tomorrow, what would you say today?
Hanbyeol, a best friend who has a bright appearance but still carries her younger sibling who died right after birth in a corner of her heart; Dasol, who wishes for the well-being of her mother who left her and her father; Geonwoo, who reminisces about his deceased grandfather; the uncle at the BaeBae Supermarket who risks his life for the sake of BaeBae Apartment; and his mother, who is tired of the harsh reality but loves Onhwa more than anyone else…
Listening to their stories, Onhwa realizes that everyone has a pain, big or small, that cannot be explained in words, and that each person lives by embracing that pain in their own way.
“I found out.
The physical law that no one can fly forever and no one can fall endlessly.
Everything has an end.
Like a tunnel with an entrance and an exit, yes, like a tunnel.
“Just as there is another path after exiting the tunnel, I intend to keep moving forward.” (p. 189)
In life, everyone falls into a deep and huge swamp at least once.
If you are struggling in the swamp of despair and have lost the strength and will to escape, I hope you will listen to the story of gentleness and a gentle heart.
This is why we must choose life even in moments of despair.
A heartbreaking and lovely story of gentleness, flapping powerfully at the edge of despair.
Onhwa, a third-year middle school student, has no time to enjoy the stormy days of adolescence.
Mom and Dad, who suddenly quit their jobs and started a pizza chain, fought often, and the apartment they bought with all their savings was tilting due to the underground tunnel construction that had started nearby, to the point where even the door wouldn't close properly.
“If you think that only my mom and dad’s relationship was on the verge of collapse, you’re making a fool of our family’s bean curd index.
My father and I were also near Namnam.
“We were so awkward and distant that we would skip even the eye contact when we passed each other.” (Page 16) Onhwa’s daily life, where she would go back and forth between school and academy to avoid her tired mother and drunk father, was the very definition of dullness.
Until 'that day' comes.
One day, my father suddenly jumped from the roof of his apartment and took his own life.
Onhwa, who was guarding the funeral home with an incomprehensible shock, belatedly receives a text message from her father.
The message asking her to come to the apartment rooftop because they had something to talk about was not delivered to Onhwa until a day after her father passed away due to a communication error.
Having wasted the opportunity of a lifetime, Onhwa finally begins to unravel her daily life, the story of her father, mother, and herself, all tangled up in a slanted apartment.
This novel brings the social issues we only see on the surface in the news into our homes.
This story, which cannot be fully captured in news headlines such as “Suicide rate is the highest among OECD countries” and “Suicide is the leading cause of death by generation,” is depicted from the perspective of middle school students, a socially vulnerable group.
It's easy to talk about the results, but it's difficult to talk about the process.
As a novel that tells the story of the process of "The Gentle Heart," it clearly shows the reason why a huge event that completely changes one's life had to happen, providing food for thought not only for teenagers but also for adults.
It further questions the meaning of life.
“If tomorrow were the last day of your life, what would you want to say today?” (p. 151)
“I will answer the world’s questions that my father answered with death with my life.”
A gentle heart, a gentle mind that creates a life that cannot be tilted
Onhwa wants to solve the huge challenge he faces through interviews.
Together with her neighborhood friend, Woorim, who is like a real sister to her, she goes around the neighborhood asking questions to both children and adults under the pretext of winning prize money by participating in the 'Our Neighborhood UCC Contest'.
If you were to die tomorrow, what would you say today?
Hanbyeol, a best friend who has a bright appearance but still carries her younger sibling who died right after birth in a corner of her heart; Dasol, who wishes for the well-being of her mother who left her and her father; Geonwoo, who reminisces about his deceased grandfather; the uncle at the BaeBae Supermarket who risks his life for the sake of BaeBae Apartment; and his mother, who is tired of the harsh reality but loves Onhwa more than anyone else…
Listening to their stories, Onhwa realizes that everyone has a pain, big or small, that cannot be explained in words, and that each person lives by embracing that pain in their own way.
“I found out.
The physical law that no one can fly forever and no one can fall endlessly.
Everything has an end.
Like a tunnel with an entrance and an exit, yes, like a tunnel.
“Just as there is another path after exiting the tunnel, I intend to keep moving forward.” (p. 189)
In life, everyone falls into a deep and huge swamp at least once.
If you are struggling in the swamp of despair and have lost the strength and will to escape, I hope you will listen to the story of gentleness and a gentle heart.
This is why we must choose life even in moments of despair.
GOODS SPECIFICS
- Date of issue: November 14, 2025
- Page count, weight, size: 196 pages | 135*200*12mm
- ISBN13: 9788958070740
You may also like
카테고리
korean
korean
![ELLE 엘르 스페셜 에디션 A형 : 12월 [2025]](http://librairie.coreenne.fr/cdn/shop/files/b8e27a3de6c9538896439686c6b0e8fb.jpg?v=1766436872&width=3840)
