Lee Jang-wook, who depicts the unknow beyond the truth through sophisticated language and meticulously constructed composition, presents a story in which people from different places and times come together and grow apart in strange ways.

"In an exquisite world designed by the author, readers come to confuse fantasy with reality.”

- The Kyunghyang Shinmun

“Through elaborate design, the author weaves together turn-of-the-century Korea undergoing a financial crisis, and today’s pandemic-gripped world.”

- The Seoul Shinmun

One day, a guy named Do Hyeondo calls the protagonist (Yun Hoyeon), saying he is his wife (Seonwu Jeong)’s ex-boyfriend and is thinking about killing himself. He threatens that if he dies, the protagonist, too, will die. Do Hyeondo and Yun Hoyeon end up meeting and talking over drinks.

Hyeondo, who lives in 1999, met Seonwu Jeong, Hoyeon’s future wife, in philosophy class in college. The two broke up for no particular reason. Then one day, Hyeondo receives a notice informing him that he has a debt of eight hundred million won; from then on, the debt collector persistently harasses him. Then Hyeondo finds out that there’s a joint debtor: Hoyeon.

Hoyeon, who lives in 2019, is a wealthy and capable consultant. He falls in love with Seonwu Jeong, the secretary of a client, for her somewhat indifferent and mysterious aura. She has trouble sleeping at night, and often goes off somewhere without telling Hoyeon. The day Hyeondo calls, he finds that once again, she’s gone; after talking to Hyeondo on the phone, he decides to go see him.

In 1999, Kim and Pak, friends of Hyeondo, hit a foreign worker with their car on a snowy night. They were on their way to Hyeondo’s place after he asked them to come over.

In 2019, Hoyeon tells his friend Pak, as a joke, that he should “take care” of the union head, a foreigner, who led a slowdown. Pak really does as Hoyeon tells him, and the foreigner, dumped in an alley, falls into a coma because of Kim and Pak. 

Hyeondo and Hoyeon go their separate ways after having a drink together. But then Hyeondo goes after Hoyeon, who is drunk, and pulls out a knife and stabs himself in the stomach. Hoyeon returns home and falls into deep sleep, feeling intense pain in his stomach.

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).