“Where are you? In this world, or outside it?”

There’s no better way to describe it than the cliché “two-thumbs up.” – Yu Minhwan, Munhwa Ilbo

Included in Everything but the Giraffe, “Our Dear Jeong Guibo” won the 2014 Kim Yujeong Literary Award. Most of the other works have been nominated for prominent literary awards in recent years.

The characters in Lee’s novels appear to be found anywhere, but are nowhere to be found. 1 out of 7.244 billion. Every day 300,000 people are born and 170,000 die. Living is being 1 out of the remaining 130,000. It’s as simple as following the meandering path of life – being born, meeting, loving, parting, and dying. The realization that “most of our lives are made of repetitive and mechanical activities” and the fact that “it applies to everyone equally” gives us a bizarre sense of security. However, the life that is quantified by probability and numbers, unfortunately, fails to explain my life. If everyone is the same as me, why do I feel so lonely?

Lee fills the void between the statistical values with memories. The moments that cannot be quantified, therefore, make an ordinary life into an authentic one. Ordinary individuals become witnesses to each other’s lives. In other words, what makes Jeong Guibo (1972-2013) special isn’t where he was born, how he was raised, or when he died, but the memories of the people who established relationships with him.

In Everything but the Giraffe, people roam about their lives and reflect on their memories of those who were with them—wishing that others who are listening to their life stories will become unofficial witnesses to their lives. The author gives names to the people who are like us but can never be identical to us.

Lee Jang-wook  was born in Seoul in 1968 and received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Russian language and literature at Korea University. He began his literary career by publishing poems in Hyundae Munhak in 1994, and in 2005 he received the 3rd Munhak Sucheop Writers’ Award. His works include the poetry collections The Sand Hill in My Sleep, The Song Request at Noon; a collection of literary criticism, Revolution and Modernism; the full-length novels, Cheerful Devils of Callot, Stranger Than Paradise, and The Carol; and the short story collections, The King of Confessions, Everything That’s Not a Giraffe, and April March’s Love.

He received the 1st Webzine Moonji Literary Award in 2011 for the short story, “Kokran.” He also received the Moonji Literary Award, the Kim Yu-Jeong Literary Award, and the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 6th Young Writer’s Award. He is currently an editor for The Quarterly Changbi, and after his post as a professor in the Department of Creative Writing at Chosun University (2008-2014), has been a professor in the Department of Creative Writing at Dongguk University (since 2014).