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Urbanites Swim Upstream: Nobody Knows What Happened by Kim Young-ha scrap
by Jung Yeo-ul
October 23, 2014
Author Bio 작가 소개
Kim Young-ha
Kim Young-ha is one of the best writers at depicting the modern urban lifestyle. Urban dwellers working at their cutting-edge jobs, their daily grind at work and secret pleasures in private, the dazzling entertainment available in the city, and how increasing efficiency at work only leads to ever-greater loneliness. Kim’s latest collection of short stories, Nobody Knows What Happened, showcases his talent in capturing the daily, inner lives of city dwellers.
Urbanites pretend that nothing is wrong on the surface, but their polished lifestyles are only a façade for monstrous secrets and desperation. The urban dwellers described in Kim Young-ha’s light yet probing style hide memories of pain and trauma as they masquerade as carefree, elegant urbanites. The man who thinks he is a robot; the woman attracted to the man who thinks he is a robot although she is having an affair with her boss; the corrupt policeman who cracks down on shoplifters, only to make a profit selling their loot; the man suddenly gifted with the most beautiful voice on Earth after his voice breaks; the man who continues to meet his ex-girlfriend once a year at the same hotel in Frankfurt for seven years; and the woman who uses her beautiful skin to get a job as a nurse at a dermatologist, only to contract a disease that leaves her face looking like “a botched pizza,” and then commits suicide.
Kim Young-ha’s stories are peopled by all the different types we bump into in our daily lives. They ignore each other at the price of ever-growing loneliness, ultimately failing to connect with each other. Their growing isolation and pain is portrayed in sharp relief in Kim’s writing. 
Writer 필자 소개
Jung Yeo-ul
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