At 83, Jo Jung-rae Asks One Last Time: What Does Love Help Us Endure?

'Seorikkot,' a Love Story Brought to the Forefront After 56 Years

"Not Just a Simple Love Story"—Two People Standing Against Money and Patriarchy

"Why do you only write novels about history and society, and never about romance or love, sir?"

Author Jo Jung-rae, known for 'Taebaek Mountain Range' and 'Arirang,' is holding a press conference on the 24th at the Seoul Press Center to celebrate the publication of his new novel, 'Seorikkot.' Photo by Yonhap News.

This was a question posed by a reader. It was during the time when Jo Jung-rae, after writing "Taebaek Sanmaek," "Arirang," and "Hangang," traveled across the country to meet readers. Jo said he paused at that moment. That question lingered for nearly 20 years. In the meantime, he wrote about Chinese capitalism, about education, about the nation, about money. And this year, at the age of eighty-three, he finally wrote about love.

When Jo Jung-rae met with reporters on the 24th at the Korea Press Center in Jung-gu, Seoul, he brought up that long-standing question as he introduced his first full-length novel in three years, "Seorikkot." Having debuted in 1970, he produced numerous novels over 56 years, but this was the first time a romance between a man and a woman sat at the center of his story. He realized that the time he had left to write novels was shrinking as he grew older, and thought that writing a love story his readers wanted, as he closed out his life, would be meaningful. He also recalled when his fellow novelist Kim Hoon once remarked that even "Taebaek Sanmaek" contained a love story that outshone even "Chunhyangjeon."

However, just because Jo Jung-rae decided to write about love did not mean he suddenly became a romance novelist. In "Seorikkot," philosophy major Jae-yi, who writes poetry, and art student So-in, meet at a college poetry and art exhibition. So-in attaches a painting that reinterprets Van Gogh's "Starry Night" to Jae-yi's poem. In this case, poetry and painting recognized each other before words did. But Jae-yi, pushed by the wishes of his businessman father, leaves for the United States. Five years later, when he returns, he finds So-in utterly changed by her family's collapse, debt, and illness.

Up to this point, the story might seem a familiar pure love. Jo Jung-rae, however, pivots back to his familiar ground from here. The force that separates the lovers is not a twist of fate, but money. A wealthy father who refuses to see a poor woman as a person, the desire to make his son his heir, and the fragile status of the eldest son just because he has three daughters. Capitalist succession and male-centered family structures wedge themselves into the heart of the romance. Rather than join his father's world, Jae-yi strikes a secret deal with his elder brother to cover So-in's debts and medical bills. Even when writing about love, issues of capital, class, and patriarchy naturally followed along—for Jo Jung-rae, perhaps inevitably.

On that day, he said, "I tried to write a story of sad love." Yet he seemed much less interested in sadness itself. What, after all, made the love sad? He saw the greed and inhumanity of a crude capitalism undermining the lives of healthy citizens and, within that, destroying love as well. What matters is what happens after destruction. Can people recreate love? He said, "This novel is not just a simple love story."

The Jojongrae Taebaeksanmaek Literature Museum, located in the Beolgyo-eup area, the main setting of the novel Taebaeksanmaek. Boseong-gun

In this sense, "Seorikkot" represents less of a transformation and more of a return for Jo Jung-rae. In "Taebaek Sanmaek," ideology divided people; in "Arirang," empires trampled on daily life; in "Hangang," development and power cornered the individual. While his recent work "Hwanggeum Jongi" chased humans driven by a desire for money, in "Seorikkot" he asks what can be set on the other side of that world of money. This time, the answer he chooses is love. It is not that he left history behind for love, but that he brought history once again to the smallest unit of society—two people.

Jo Jung-rae's approach to writing a love story was unmistakably his own. To tell a story that began with a single poem and Van Gogh’s painting, he traveled as far as Paris, France, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He visited the Orsay Museum, the Van Gogh Museum, and the Kröller-Müller Museum himself. He could have constructed scenes based on a few art books, but as an octogenarian author, he chose to visit the places in person, filling four fieldwork notebooks with memos and sketches. That journey became the journey of the two lovers in the novel. Even in this two-volume, 600-page love story—equal to about 1,690 manuscript sheets—the fieldwork approach he used for "Taebaek Sanmaek" remained the same.

The title "Seorikkot" ("Frost Flower") also originated during his research. While sketching Van Gogh's works in his notebook, Jo Jung-rae thought of frost flowers that bloom in the cold of winter—flowers that appear only briefly on a chilly night before vanishing. The love in the novel, too, is not easily permitted. But, as he was planning out the work, the author found himself suddenly facing the shadow of death.

Last year, Jo Jung-rae underwent surgery for an aortic aneurysm. Writing on this novel was delayed by several months from his planned schedule. During his recovery, he wrote in a weakened state and suffered chills every two or three days late in the process, ultimately finishing the draft about two months later than planned. In effect, he wrote about love gripping life with a body close to death.

At the press conference that day, Jo Jung-rae repeatedly spoke about his wife, poet Kim Cho-hye. The two met as classmates in Korean literature at Dongguk University and married in 1967. Next year marks their 60th wedding anniversary—a diamond anniversary. It hardly seemed a coincidence that, for an author who has spent his life writing about history and society, one of the loves he’s spoken of the most—and now at his first romance novel’s launch—would be the person by his side for so long.

Yonhap News Agency

Still, there is a strong possibility that "Seorikkot" will be his final full-length novel. Jo Jung-rae said he has written his novels as if racing a "100-meter sprint," but now wants to give his body a measure of freedom. That does not mean he intends to put down his pen. He plans to return to short stories, a form he has neglected for years, as well as write essays. Even after last year’s surgery, his final wish has remained unchanged—to die with his head down, writing at his desk.

He became even more emphatic when the subject of AI came up. He believes artificial intelligence could never match a writer’s imagination. No matter how advanced technology becomes, it cannot take the place of stories created by human beings.

For a novelist who has run for 56 years from "Taebaek Sanmaek," the final word chosen for his last full-length novel was not grand history, the nation, or money—but love. However, for Jo Jung-rae, love was not about hiding away from the world. Instead, it was about one person remaining by another’s side until the end, even as money, power, and illness tear one down.

So perhaps what Jo Jung-rae, at eighty-three, is asking in his final novel is not whether it is possible to love at all. Even in an age when everything is replaced quickly and easily, can we still endure another’s suffering as if it is our own? "Seorikkot" has blossomed from that question.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.