Overview

A massive meteorite crashes into Earth, creating a 39.4-square-kilometer-wide, 1,200 meter-high piece of land in its wake. Locals promptly dub it the ‘Floating Garden.’ Twenty years later, when the aftermath of the meteorite has cleared somewhat, the government launches an immense project to build a superluxe city called Ark on top of the Floating Garden, connected to the ground by a colossal elevator. While ordinary people continue to rebuild their lives in the debris, the upper class moves into Ark City where cozy new digs are waiting for them.

Welcome to Ark is a new YA novel, set in Ark High School, the only high school in Ark City. Protagonists Agate and Ruby, fraternal twins, are admitted to Ark High School based on the ‘Children of Earth’ admissions track that allots 10% of admissions spots to children not born in Ark City. These slots are coveted steps up the social ladder, with all Ark High School students automatically gaining citizenship in Ark City. But Agate’s reasons for entering the school are somewhat different. Agate once visited Ark City when he was a child, and met a girl there who stole his heart. Knowing that the girl lives in Ark City, he hopes to find her by becoming a resident himself.

The very first day of the semester, however, Agate’s plan encounters an unexpected snag. The student body president Ilak, who also happens to be the grandson of the president of the school board, blackmails Agate into spying for him by threatening to hurt his twin sister Ruby. Ialk wants Agate to spy on the members of a book club called Phronesis, a group of Children of Earth lead by second-year student Sion Yoon. Thus coerced, Agate joins the group against his will and discovers that Phronesis intends to bomb the school. He decides to try to stop the bombing mission, if only to protect the girl he came looking for, who he believes is a student at Ark High School.

Born out of the author’s meticulous imagination, Ark City is a clearly fictional place that still serves as an unnervingly spot-on analogy for society today. Rigid class distinctions and an immutable status quo controlled by the 1% are not fiction at all. Agate’s dilemma of being forced to choose between compliance and revolt within a deeply unfair system is one familiar to many.

“They were ready to surrender whatever meager privileges they had; this was why they had battled their way up here, 1,200 meters above the ground. Agate knew this in his head, but he could not accept it in his heart. Ark High School was a tool for the upper class to keep the status quo in check, with a built-in supply of fresh slaves in training. So what? What did they think was going to happen after they destroyed the place?” (pp. 121-122)

Winner of the 2008 Changbi Young Adult Writer’s Award for the highly original Wizard Bakery, the author has since won over both young adult and adult audiences with the novel Gills and the short story collection Not on Purpose. Her latest YA novel Welcome to Ark brings us another teen protagonist on a weighty mission that will appeal to all ages.

—“Bomb Ark High School, Home of the 1%”, Yonhap News

Synopsis:

What if a 15-square-kilometer meteorite hit the Earth? So begins the premise of Welcome to Ark. This is no tired disaster story, however, but the story of what follows after the dust has settled and humans have rebuilt a new world. The upper echelons of Earth decide to use the meteorite crash as an opportunity to build and plan a futuristic city dubbed Project Ark. This new city is completely contained under a glass dome, with every imaginable convenience at its disposal. The only way ordinary Earth citizens can get into Ark is to apply for a temporary job there, or to become a student of Ark High School. All children born in Ark City are guaranteed a place in Ark High School, but children of Earth are allotted only 10% of the places available, and the competition for admission is fierce.

Ruby and Agate are twins from Earth who have been accepted to Ark High School based on their entrance exam scores. Agate, the younger twin, was motivated to study for the notoriously difficult exam in order to come to Ark City and find a girl he met there on a trip as a child. He is soon disillusioned, however, by the subtle yet constant reminders that the Earthborn are not as good as those born in Ark, and the seemingly unbreakable barrier that he faces as such.

The school year has just started when Agate is summoned by Ilak, a second-year student who is the student body president and the grandson of the president of the school board. Ilak orders Agate to spy on the members of the Earthborn group Phronesis, a group he believes to be a threat to Ark City. Ilak hopes to find incriminating information that could be used to expel the group’s members from the school. When Agate refuses to cooperate, Ilak blackmails him by imprisoning Agate’s twin sister Ruby and threatening to hurt her.

The group that Agate must spy on, Phronesis, is a book club lead by Sion, a bright, kindhearted second-year student who is also the immensely popular resident assistant of the Earthborn student residence hall for. The other members of Phronesis are second-year students Anji and Hasang, and a first-year student named Dali. The members of Phronesis are enraged that Earthborn students are admitted to Ark High School for the sole purpose of employing them as lackeys and drudges serving the upper classes after graduation. In order to stop this system, Phronesis hatches a secret plan to blow up Ark High School. Threatened by Ilak, Agate becomes a member of the group along with Ruby, who knows nothing about the Ilak’s blackmail but is willing to follow her twin. The twins, however, face a dilemma in that they agree that the system is rigged to uphold the status quo, but they cannot support the bombing of the school. The other first-year student of the group, Dali, is very suspicious of the twins and consequently behaves in an abrasive way towards them. At this point Agate happens to meet a second-year student named Dana. Her secretive charm wins Agate over and he is convinced that she is the girl he met long ago, the girl he came to Ark City to search for. He becomes certain of this when a DNA test reveals that a hair he plucked off Dana’s sweater matches that of a lock of hair he has preserved from the girl he met in Ark City as a child. Determined to abort Phronesis’ bombing mission, if only to protect Dana, Agate finally discloses the group’s plans to Ilak.

Ilak leaves his office for a moment after hearing Agate’s report, and Agate notices a file on Ilak’s computer. It shows how Ilak manipulated Agate to believe that Dana was the girl he was looking for, having accessed this memory of Agate’s on Ark High School’s database of all the students’ psychological test results. The girl Agate was looking for, it turns out, was actually Dali. All the members of Phronesis are brutally arrested by the police, and Agate slides into a pit of self-loathing.

GU Byeong-mo’s Welcome to Ark is an ultimately realistic story based on a fantastical premise. The upper class will do anything to maintain the status quo, while new hopefuls rebel against them in a bid for equality. GU Byeong-mo shines an unflinching light upon this difficult journey, offering silent support to her young adult readers battling to survive in a world that is increasingly pushing the boundaries between good and evil, truth and falsehood.