Describing her newest novel, “One in all Them Is a Lie,” writer Kim Ae-ran mirrored on how her perspective on progress has modified because the launch of her debut work, “My Sensible Life” (2011).
“I wished to view progress otherwise. We regularly consider progress as getting greater or advancing, however I’ve come to see it as extra about shifting views — when different folks’s tales and locations enter into us, and people areas develop inside us,” mentioned Kim throughout a press convention in Seoul on Aug. 21.
As one of many main voices in up to date South Korean literature, Kim’s new Korean-language novel is already making waves. After preorders opened Aug. 13, the e book rapidly landed on main bookstores’ bestseller lists and has remained within the Prime 5 on the charts because the second day of presales.
Kim launched “One in all Them Is a Lie” as a narrative about tales, or maybe, about lies.
The novel follows three highschool mates — Ji-woo, So-ri and Chae-woon — who, after a sequence of encounters, develop shut and expertise an unforgettable summer time trip collectively. Though the novel spans simply two months, readers regularly uncover the trio’s previous tales as secrets and techniques are uncovered, revealing a fancy net of friendship, lies and guilt that binds them.
Whereas the novel could seem to be a coming-of-age story, Kim mentioned it deviates from the traditional notion of progress as success or achievement.
“Quite than characters reaching one thing or succeeding, they need to cease or stop doing one thing. I didn’t need the story to be about expertise being one’s salvation. It’s not about one’s expertise saving them, however about letting oneself get absorbed in a single’s personal story — and, in that course of, beginning to care about others’ tales, understanding their ache in addition to one’s personal.”
Kim additionally mirrored on how her views on progress and household have modified over time, evaluating her new novel with “My Sensible Life,” which tells the heartwarming story of a 16-year-old boy named A-reum who has progeria, a uncommon illness that causes speedy growing old, and makes the a lot of the restricted time he has.
“Once I wrote ‘My Sensible Life,’ the younger protagonist was deeply apologetic to his mother and father on account of his sickness. Wanting again, I felt sorry for that character, who should have struggled a lot to grasp his life and demise. Now that I’ve grown older, I need to have some adults who provide heat or a stepping stone for younger folks, even when it’s not outright salvation.”
Requested why her works typically concentrate on characters’ wounds and scars, Kim defined, “Misfortune just isn’t merely unhealthy luck — it’s a basic situation of life.”
“In my earlier works, I attempted to weave humor, fantasy and lightheartedness into the tales. However in some unspecified time in the future, I noticed there’s a sort of ache too profound for jokes. That’s once I began writing extra grounded, reasonable tales,” added Kim.
Since her literary debut in 2002, Kim has revealed brief story collections reminiscent of “The Luck of Flight “ (2012), “Summer season Outdoors” (2017) and “Run, Pop, Run!” (2019), garnering quite a few awards in Korea.
“My Sensible Life” is on the market in English, translated by award-winning translator Chi-Younger Kim. The bestselling e book was additionally tailored right into a 2014 movie of the identical title starring Tune Hye-kyo and Gang Dong-won.