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5 Books to Celebrate Earth Day: Even If the Earth Should Perish scrap download

지구의 날 특집: 멸망한 지구가 오더라도

#EarthDay

As we went through the pandemic, we realized that everything was connected – humans, animals, plants, the planet, and we are all connected. And we learned the hard way that because of such connection, surviving on our own was something entirely impossible.


Now that we have recovered our daily lives, however, we seem to be neglecting something that must not be forgotten: while convenience and speed once again try to triumph over inconvenience and slowness, the earth is being ruined beyond repair. With global temperatures rising, glaciers melting, ecosystems collapsing, and the diversity of nature rapidly declining, now is the time for us to think about what we must do and take action. We must ask ourselves if we are truly considering climate change as a problem of our own, a problem that we must address.


The literary works we will be introducing today describe such contemplation and reflection. In celebration of Earth Day, we will be featuring literature that depicts the earth of our present and future, poems and novels that reflect on ourselves as part of nature, and works that explore and question how we can live together as we grapple with issues of caring for one another in a time of climate crisis. Let us remember that we are all breathing in the earth that is here and now, and must hold our hands out for one other.


Gong Hyeon-jin, "The World Is Going to End Anyway" in The 15th Anthology of Award-winning Young AuthorsI, Munhakdongnae, 2024

Gong Hyeon-jin’s novel The World Is Going to End Anyway depicts our desire to be always one step ahead of others and how that very desire has ruined the world and then ourselves, all through Kwak Ju-ho and Moon Hee-ju, who always come last in the beginners’ swimming lessons for adults. Hee-ju and Ju-ho do not believe that the article about the missing bees has nothing to do with them, and they do not believe in trampling on others to get ahead. They will go “as far as they can” with someone whom they can “share a hot meal with” and share the memories, even in a world that is perishing anyway. The novel says, “to sink together and to disappear together – even that’s love.”


Chung Serang, "Reset" in Take My Voice, Arzak, 2021

Reset,” a short story included in Chung Serang’s collection of science fiction Take My Voice, illustrates a gigantic earthworm who is one day sent to destroy and renew human civilization. The story of a scientist who sends gigantic earthworms to tear down concrete buildings and lazy cities to slow down the destruction of the earth makes us think about the possibility of putting a stop to humanity’s rampage in the age of climate crisis. In the earth that has been reset, humanity does not reign over other species anymore; instead of benefiting from an uncomfortable abundance, humans enjoy a peace of mind.


Kim Sun-woo, My Warm Ghosts, Changbi, 2021

My Warm Ghosts, Kim Sun-woo’s book of poetry, firmly calls for everything to stop. In the face of the crisis put upon the earth and the environment, Kim's poetry warns us that it is time to stop, as we have become insatiable in our desire for more and more. The reality of animals being killed with no respect or dignity for their lives is what humans will soon be facing. In times of climate crisis, Kim Sun-woo’s poems seem to tell us that what poetry can do is to “cry on behalf of readers.” The community of the vulnerable described in her poems makes us imagine the possibility of a sustainable future.


Moon Tae-jun, Thoughts of the Morning, Changbi, 2022

Moon Tae-jun’s collection of poetry Thoughts of the Morning makes us stop for a moment to experience the beauty of a slow blank in time. The universe of Moon’s poetry is a world where there is no hierarchy, but solidarity. By making readers imagine how humans and nature can exist in harmony, Moon’s poetry makes us imagine a sustainable life as we live through the era of the climate crisis. Reading Moon Tae-jun’s poems makes us realize that we are not isolated individuals, but beings that are connected to one another. This collection of poetry will make readers encounter a beautiful world created by a poet who grew up in mountains and fields among flowers, trees, and birds.


Kim Hye-soon, If the Earth Dies, Whom Will the Moon Circle?, Moonji, 2022

Winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize and the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) Awards, poet Kim Hye-soon illustrates the death of her mother and the earth in her 14th collection of poetry, If the Earth Dies, Whom Will the Moon Circle? Through the personal experience of her mother’s death and the experience of the pandemic, the poet imagines a solidarity of grief. Having lived through a pandemic that forced everyone to “cover all openings in one’s face when going out” to feel with her skin death that was prevalent everywhere, Kim calls the earth “the theater that activates the extinction of humanity.” The poetry creates a solidarity of grief, where the absence caused by death and the sense of loss shed tears together.


Written by Lee Kyung-soo

Literary critic, professor at Chungang University. Debuted as the winner of the Munhwa Ilbo New Wrtier’s Contest in 1999. Most notable works include Festival of Unsettling Imagination, Contemporary Korean Poetry and the Aesthetics of Repetition, The Descendants of Babel Walking in the Ruins, Dancing Shadows, The Poems After, You Can Be Anything Beyond Yourself, Rereading Baek Seok Poetry, Times of Reading Baek Seok Poetry, Poems Yet to Come, among others.


Translated by Si-Hyun Kim

Shannon is an interpreter and translator with expertise in a wide array of domains ranging from literature and popular culture to advanced technology. She has provided translations for various esteemed corporations and institutions, including NAVER Corp, SBS, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, and HUFS GSIAS. 

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