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While We Are Relieved

While We Are Relieved scrap

우리가 안도하는 사이

  • Author

    Kim Yi-seol김이설

  • Publisher

    jamobook자음과모음

  • Year Published

    2024-05

  • Category

    Literary Fiction 순수소설

  • Target User

    Adult 성인

  • Period

    Contemporary 현대

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Description 작품 소개

“They say we’re at an age where we’re busy growing old.”

Between the days that shaped us and the days we will shape


The forty-nine-year-olds Nanju, Migyeong, and Jeongeun set off on a trip to Gangneung, twenty-five years after their previous visit when they had just turned twenty-four. As they reunite after years apart, an initial awkwardness hangs in the air, but it quickly dissipates as they embrace each other, cheek to cheek, exchanging warm greetings. Now, at forty-nine, they’ve grown accustomed to the signs of aging as they stand on the precipice of their fifties. Yet, they too once had a dazzling youth. Generation X, the new generation, the pre-Suneung exam generation—these were the terms by which they were once known. They also experienced youth in its vibrant, energetic, and indefinable form, beautiful in its own right, even though “just being in one’s twenties itself makes life inherently challenging.” Now, after 25 years, the three friends find themselves confronting the realities of approaching their fifties—urinary incontinence, high blood pressure, hair loss, and depression.


While We Are Relieved is a story about the “generation X” or the “pre-Suneung exam generation” who have passed through their youthful twenties and are about to enter their fifties, facing bladder control issues, high blood pressure, thinning hair and melancholy. Although it may seem like a distant past now, those born in 1975 experienced their twenties participating in student movements, going on dates while receiving extra editions announcing Kim Il-sung’s death, bearing the full brunt of the IMF crisis, and witnessing friends lose their families in the Sampoong Department Store collapse. And it is them who are now embarking on a trip to Gangneung as they approach their fifties.


Though they were unaware, Gangneung held memories for them all. This journey would overlay their reminiscences of pain, joy, and moments they longed to forget. Against a lifetime of memories, the three-day trip would be short, but even so, a memory as such could serve as fuel that lasts for years to come. A fleeting instant, a burst of laughter—such transient moments can sustain people through a lifetime.


Jeongeun describes people in their fifties as “those who talk loudly anywhere, rush butt-first to sit whenever a seat becomes available, and unzip their pants before entering the bathroom,” and says that she has “become just like them.” However, being in one’s fifties is not about that. It’s an age where one becomes accustomed to aging and accepts growing older, an age where one passes through maturity and reaches the stage of ripeness. During Our Respite traces the footsteps of the characters, weaving together a tapestry of their reflections that resonate with both the me of the past and the us of the present.

Reference

Support from jamobook

Author Bio 작가 소개

She began her literary career when her short story “Thirteen Years Old” won the Seoul Shinmun New Writer’s Contest in 2006. She published a short story collection, Things No One Says, Quiet Like Today and The Night No One Weeps. She has written novellas Bad Blood, The Spector, Seonhwa, Our Stop, and the Night of Transcription, While We Feel Relieved and a collection of short-stories To the Name Lost. She won the Hwang Sun-won Literary Award for New Literature, Munhakdongne Young Writer’s Award, and the Kim Hyun Literary Award.

Translator`s Expectations 기대평

There are no expectations.

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