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Featured Titles for Rights Sales

A Joyful Adult scrap

즐거운 어른

#women #aging #laterlife

  • ISBN

    9791194184034

  • Author

    Lee Ok-sun이옥선

  • Publisher

    Storyseller 이야기장수

  • Rights Holder

    Storyseller 이야기장수

  • Year Published

    2024-08

  • Category

    Essay 에세이

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! Updated: 2026-09-10

  • Posted by Storyseller on 2026-09-09
  • Updated by Storyseller on 2026-09-10

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Description 작품 소개

A long-awaited grown-up arrives
—with a fearless voice, razor-sharp humor, and an irrepressibly spirited outlook on life.

Meet a mother who once warned her gifted daughter, in no uncertain terms, never to become famous. When her daughter was still in school, she even talked her out of running for student council president. Perplexed, the daughter asked why being famous was such a bad thing. Her mother had a simple answer:

“You’re bound to make mistakes in life, and sooner or later you’ll trip and fall in the street. If no one knows who you are, you can just dust yourself off, get back on your feet, and carry on. But if everyone around you recognizes you, can you imagine how mortifying that would be?” (p. 107)

Writer Lee Ok-seon is the mother of Kim Ha-na, one of Korea’s most distinctive and beloved contemporary writers, whose singular voice and wit have won her a devoted readership, particularly among women. Kim Ha-na says that because her mother never burdened her with grand ambitions or expectations—for her life, or even for her as a daughter—she was free to find her own way.

The family’s unofficial motto was “Mandako,” a Gyeongsang-do dialect expression that roughly translates as “Why bother?” or “What for?” It perfectly captures the unconventional spirit with which Lee Ok-seon ran her household. Now, at the age of seventy-six, she has published her first book of essays, A Joyful Adult.

For the young and not-so-young who find themselves constantly rushing, worrying, and striving to keep up, Lee Ok-seon offers a refreshingly unfussy philosophy: take it easy, you don’t have to give everything your all, and in the end, everything passes. She refuses to be weighed down by a past that is already gone or a future that has yet to arrive. Instead, she embraces the freedom of simply living in the present—and in doing so, discovers more to learn, notice, and enjoy.

A lifelong homemaker, Lee Ok-seon first revealed her remarkable gift for writing in , a child-rearing diary that her daughter Kim Ha-na calls both the book she has read more than any other and her most treasured possession. Written day by day as she raised her child, the diary captures the life of a homemaker who, after seeing her child through childhood and sending her husband off, felt as though she had finally completed all of life’s assignments. What follows is a candid and quietly wise account of the everyday joys, observations, and discoveries of her later years.

Author Bio 작가 소개

이옥선

Lee Ok-sun이옥선

Born in Jinju in 1948. Author of Victory Notes, a parenting journal that chronicles her daughter Kim Hana from the day she was born to her fifth birthday.

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