[Book Sip] Jang Ryujin's New Short Story Collection 'Yeonsu'

Editor's NoteSome sentences encapsulate the entire content of a book, while others instantly reach the reader's heart, creating a connection with the book. We excerpt and introduce such meaningful sentences from books.

This is the new short story collection by author Jang Ryujin, who won the choice of 100,000 readers with her first collection, The Joy and Sorrow of Work. In this work, she again heightens readers' interest with intense attraction, immersion, and vivid situational settings. It contains six stories, including the Young Writer Award-winning piece "Yeonsu."

The faded forsythia-colored car at the driving license academy, just sitting on that shabby seat made me anxious like a child thrown alone into a world I had never experienced before. It felt as if my originally sensible sense of daily life was forcibly reset. I either pressed the accelerator too much or too little, always missed the timing to turn on the hazard lights and blinkers, and while busily turning the steering wheel to park backward, I repeated reversing and moving forward but ended up going back and forth along the same trajectory several times. From the moment I put the gear in R, my mind became even more complicated. I kept flipping the image of the car in my head back and forth until I couldn't tell which was the original, then pressed the accelerator too hard again and got scolded by the instructor for hanging one rear wheel on the flower bed behind the parking line. - From "Yeonsu"

As soon as Lee Chan-hwi sat down, he turned the A4 paper so that others could read it and placed it on the floor, then pointed with his finger at the blank space labeled 'Team Leader.'

"First, we need to decide on a team leader."

Then, he glanced once to the left and right at the team members and said,

"Who wants to be the team leader?"

Probably not only I but everyone there already sensed it at that moment. The one who said that while smoothly raising five fingers neatly beside their shiny face was going to be the team leader. - From "Fun Fun Festival"

Even though I knew it was impossible, I waited for that person at a cafe near their house. It was the place where, after finishing the second cup of tea with a thousand faces, I always took a taxi down and waved my hand. That cafe near your house. Now that I have quit my job, won't you just open up and meet me once? I'll wait. That person appeared. Tears came out embarrassingly. I swear I had never behaved like this even when I was dating. Sorry... All the friends I wanted to do well with left... I was upset... I just wanted to know the reason... Maybe I did something wrong... Could you honestly tell me... That person, Hanbyeol, finally spoke. Manager, I really liked you. Even though it was the opposite direction, you always took the taxi with me and kindly dropped me off first here. Manager... I think I should do a professional job. I couldn't see a future there... I'm sorry.

What's there to be sorry about? I'm the one who's sorry for not being your future.

Now it was different. Now I was confident. - From "Contest"

Yeonsu | Written by Jang Ryujin | Changbi | 336 pages | 16,800 KRW

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