If possible, inside a person
If possible, in a crowd

Because he was often curious about what it was like to live among people, and because the wind never stopped blowing, writer Lee Byeong-ryul packed his suitcase again and took out his pen.
The author published his third travel essay collection, “The Person Next to Me (2015),” following “Attraction” and “The Wind Blows, I Like You.”
"The Person Next to Me" is the final chapter of the travel trilogy and has been loved by countless readers.
And after five years, a revised and expanded edition is published.
We focused on going to good places and living good lives, adding new shining stories.
Capturing landscapes in photographs and recording stories in words was the mission of the author, who was born to be a traveler at heart.
The writer gave up on this fateful task, gathered up old and new films, and gave them to a photo studio.
It also contains additional feelings of being moved to tears by the birth of a new star, being overwhelmed by the task of naming that star, and wanting to go back to that place again as you recall the incident of meeting that person who was so good that your whole body reacted.
The object on the cover is a ‘connecting link’.
Do you remember when you were little, cutting and pasting colored paper to make circles?
Like a skein of paper that becomes endlessly woven together, I tried to capture the curiosity of a person who wants to meet new people and connect with good people.
In this new form, “The Person Next to Me” approaches readers again.

If 『Attraction』 and 『The Wind Blows, I Like You』 mainly captured exotic scenery while traveling around 80 countries around the world, 『The Person Next to Me』 can be seen as its domestic version.
The places I traveled to were Seoul, Gyeonggi, Chungcheong, Gangwon, Gyeongsang, Jeolla, and Jeju, literally all eight provinces of the country, and there was no mountain, sea, island, or land.
Instead of capturing the scene of a beautiful blonde couple kissing, my eyes are captured by the people gathered in groups of three or five in a shabby market street eating noodles, or waiting for a bus at a small bus terminal, and our chance and beautiful connections.
The surrounding scenery that can be seen just by turning one's head, and the expressions of people who are ordinary but filled with something within, are captured in a way that seems indifferent yet affectionate.


For the writer, ‘people’ are the greatest driving force that makes him go on a trip.
I leave because I love you, and I leave because I miss you.
Of course, I leave with both feelings.
And the main culprit is the person ‘next to you’.
Although it is called a 'travel essay collection', as can be inferred from the title, it is filled with affection for people and relationships.

This book is a signal from the author.
I hope that readers who open this book will receive this signal and be reborn as good people.
I hope that this signal will spread like a forest on the earth or a constellation in the sky, and reach ‘the person next to me.’
In the meantime, we will each pack our suitcases again.

We gather the dotted lines of the journey
I'm completing one life.

For those who believe that walking among people is a journey, many things actually unfold before their eyes.
The author focuses on the long narrative of the scene he encounters.
As I listened a lot, nodded, and exchanged greetings and greetings, I think a lot of things naturally accumulated inside me.
Rather than calling these travels trips, it would be more accurate to view them as a natural extension and extension of life.


The time we left the poetry camp and sat in the valley of Gyeryongsan Mountain reciting poetry together, the quiet encounter with dolphins at a zoo in Jeju Island, guessing about the relationship between a man and a woman we met at a quiet Jinan bus terminal, reuniting with a boy from Heuksando who I had followed well to for a long time now that he was an adult, the incident of coming home with someone else's suitcase switched at the airport, the night we stayed at the house of an elderly person we had met in passing on our trip to Mungyeong after hearing the news of their death, the man who showed up out of nowhere to help us when our car tires got stuck in the snow in Taebaek in the middle of winter and then left, a trip to Danyang with a Vietnamese friend we met at Korean language school, etc...

Each prose piece in this book may seem like a very ordinary story, but it expands into an incredible story created by an unexpected connection.
It stems from an open mind that is possible because he calls himself a poet, someone who 'makes art' and 'calls inspiration'.
Sentences composed of beautiful sensibility and carefully chosen poetic language create a strange rhythm, and the story naturally makes you curious about what happens next.
The journey will have no set beginning or end.
The moment you open this book is the beginning of your journey, and the moment you close it is the end of your journey.
I hope we can begin our journeys anytime, anywhere, and that those journeys will come together to create one wonderful life.