I Love This Planet
Other
- Year of Production
- 2023
Summary
Winner of the 11th Soorim Literary Prize
"This novel shows what it would be like to struggle and survive in a world where violent and inefficient species live. Sometimes I feel like this world I live in is a true extraterrestrial world." - Kim Hye-na, novelist
"How is this kind of genre imagination even possible? Leaning on the science fiction genre, I Love This Planet expands the working conditions of Korean society since the 1970s into a joke on a cosmic level. It may be a different aspect of anger and ridicule against a barbaric time that cannot be reversed without borrowing the perspective of an alien. If this variant sci-fi labor literature resembles Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5, which exposes the horrors of war, it is for that reason. - Shin Soo-jeong, literary critic
Set in Seoul in the middle of the 1970s industrialization era, when factory workers were called by numbers, not by their names, this political sci-fi tells the story of alienation, labor realities and connecting different lives.
An alien crash-lands on an unfamiliar planet 100 million light years away from their own home. The place they fell was Seoul, South Korea in 1978. In order to survive on this planet, they transform into a human form as a female factory worker in Cheonggyecheon, that is notoriously known as the harshest working environment in the 1970s. Succeeding in infiltrating Earth and taking the name Nina, the protagonist worked as number 10 sida(a slang term for 'assistant'), number 2 seamstress, and then as the only female tailor, learning about human emotions and gradually becoming aware of the unfairness of the severe labor condition. Meanwhile, with the help of Na-seong, an assistant tailor, she learns human emotions and social skills. She meets a man she loves, learns about the feeling of love, and forms her own family. But that happiness doesn't last long.
Although this novel wears a skin of science fiction, it shows the realities of one of the darkest time in Korean modern history through the eye of Nina, who gradually transforms into a human while living as an Earthling for nearly 50 years. Without losing humor and in a down-to-earth manner, it also reveals through the story of Nina's son who is living in 2024 as a carrier that the reality has not changed much and that their lives living in different time and space are connected after all.
Kim Ha-yul was born in 1979 and raised in Seoul. She studied Creative Writing in Dankook University and made her debut by winning Silcheon Munhak New Writers Prize in 2013 for a short story Baton. Her other publication includes the novel Subscribe Me and the story collection Drifting into Family.
"This novel shows what it would be like to struggle and survive in a world where violent and inefficient species live. Sometimes I feel like this world I live in is a true extraterrestrial world." - Kim Hye-na, novelist
"How is this kind of genre imagination even possible? Leaning on the science fiction genre, I Love This Planet expands the working conditions of Korean society since the 1970s into a joke on a cosmic level. It may be a different aspect of anger and ridicule against a barbaric time that cannot be reversed without borrowing the perspective of an alien. If this variant sci-fi labor literature resembles Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5, which exposes the horrors of war, it is for that reason. - Shin Soo-jeong, literary critic
Set in Seoul in the middle of the 1970s industrialization era, when factory workers were called by numbers, not by their names, this political sci-fi tells the story of alienation, labor realities and connecting different lives.
An alien crash-lands on an unfamiliar planet 100 million light years away from their own home. The place they fell was Seoul, South Korea in 1978. In order to survive on this planet, they transform into a human form as a female factory worker in Cheonggyecheon, that is notoriously known as the harshest working environment in the 1970s. Succeeding in infiltrating Earth and taking the name Nina, the protagonist worked as number 10 sida(a slang term for 'assistant'), number 2 seamstress, and then as the only female tailor, learning about human emotions and gradually becoming aware of the unfairness of the severe labor condition. Meanwhile, with the help of Na-seong, an assistant tailor, she learns human emotions and social skills. She meets a man she loves, learns about the feeling of love, and forms her own family. But that happiness doesn't last long.
Although this novel wears a skin of science fiction, it shows the realities of one of the darkest time in Korean modern history through the eye of Nina, who gradually transforms into a human while living as an Earthling for nearly 50 years. Without losing humor and in a down-to-earth manner, it also reveals through the story of Nina's son who is living in 2024 as a carrier that the reality has not changed much and that their lives living in different time and space are connected after all.
Kim Ha-yul was born in 1979 and raised in Seoul. She studied Creative Writing in Dankook University and made her debut by winning Silcheon Munhak New Writers Prize in 2013 for a short story Baton. Her other publication includes the novel Subscribe Me and the story collection Drifting into Family.
Company Profile
Other
Greenbook Agency
As a literary agency, Greenbook Agency has imported more than 1,000 outstanding titles from all over the world. In 2017, Greenbook started representing the best-selling sci-fi author Kim Bo-Young. Soon after, Greenbook made a deal with HarperCollins for Kim Bo-Youngs 「I'm Waiting for You」, the first Korean science fiction to be published in the US market.
Since then, Greenbook has been adding more pages of deals and projects, representing numerous Korean writers, Djuna, Jeon Samhye, Jeon Heyjin,Park Moon-young, Yi seo-young, including Bora Chung, the author of 「Cursed Bunny」, which has short-listed for the International Booker Prize 2022.
Since then, Greenbook has been adding more pages of deals and projects, representing numerous Korean writers, Djuna, Jeon Samhye, Jeon Heyjin,Park Moon-young, Yi seo-young, including Bora Chung, the author of 「Cursed Bunny」, which has short-listed for the International Booker Prize 2022.
