Breaking Through to the Literary World (1)
22.
Murmur, murmur…. The food at the year-end party-cum-New Year’s party was beer and pizza.
Apparently, they’d chosen it to suit younger tastes.
The editorial directors and the representative had gone off to hold a separate gathering among themselves. I chewed on a slice of pizza and looked around the main conference room. For now, the heart of Gyeongseong Publishing was made up of four departments: our Periodicals Department, the Korean Literature Department in charge of Korean fiction and criticism, the Foreign Literature Department, and the Children’s Literature Department.
Those departments were also the ones most directly affected by the announcement of the Shinchun Moonye results.
Setting the Foreign Literature Department aside, the other three needed to identify new talent quickly. In fact, there were far more employees who weren’t even present today. The Education Content Team, which held humanities lectures for the general public; the Media Team, which managed the application and webzine; the PR Team, the General Affairs Team, and countless other administrative teams…. Not to mention the subsidiaries.
Educational books, printing, writer support projects, and so on.
If you gathered them all in one place, you’d probably need a conference room three times this size. There’s a joke people like to make: without Gyeongseong Publishing, the Korean literary world would stagger.
Well. I admitted it.
Part of the reason I’d applied to Gyeongseong Publishing was because that line sounded cool.
Literature majors always had a weakness for things that seemed impressive.
“Mok. So where did you submit for the Shinchun Moonye?” Senior Yang asked again.
And again, I refused to answer.
“I told you, I’m not telling you. I’ll let you know when the results are out.”
“Aw, come on. I want to check the paper for that first.”
At that moment, Team Leader Lee gathered everyone together. “All right, enough noise. The New Year’s papers are arriving soon, so let’s divide up the work.”
The Korean Literature Department and the Children’s Literature Department shuffled over this way, one by one.
As the air filled with obvious reluctance, Team Leader Lee tried to soothe us. “Don’t make those faces. I have to work after the party too.”
“What kind of work?”
“I called a reporter from the Dongwol Daily culture desk. They asked to interview us on the general trend of this year’s Shinchun Moonye results, so I told them to come by. The reporter’ll be here shortly.”
The press, too, read the currents of the Shinchun Moonye through Gyeongseong Publishing.
That meant, in itself, how deeply connected Gyeongseong Publishing was to the literary establishment. Senior Kim asked, “Team Leader. How many papers are coming?”
“They’re still only major outlets with a bit of standing, so just seven. Since these are congratulatory pieces for the winners in poetry, fiction, criticism, and children’s literature, there’ll be a total of… twenty-eight articles posted.”
There were far more than twenty-eight people gathered here.
Each department had its own design team and planning team, after all.
But the writing would ultimately come from our editorial teams. “It’d probably be best to decide in advance who’s going to write the congratulatory pieces in each editorial department, right? Come on, everyone, pick roughly ten people per department. Hurry up, hurry up.”
At Team Leader Lee’s urging, the editorial teams 1, 2, and 3 of the Periodicals Department all gathered together.
Since we totaled about fifteen people, the odds were two in three. “What should we do? Want to play rock-paper-scissors?” Senior Kim said.
At that, I declared confidently, “Please leave me out. You said you’d exempt the people who submitted to the Shinchun Moonye.”
This was exactly why I’d gathered up my courage the day before yesterday and raised my hand, humiliation be damned.
Now that things had come to this, I might as well avoid work if I could.
If I lost, I’d just go straight home and sleep.
“Yeah, kid. Then if you win, you can stay and write your acceptance speech for the awards ceremony.” Senior Yoon said.
I gladly agreed.
As long as I won, what couldn’t I do?
To be honest, I felt a little restless.
More than I let on.
For some reason, I felt like I might make it; for some reason, I also felt like I wouldn’t.
But the conclusion was always the same. Ah, I don’t know. Let’s leave it to fate.
After a round of rock-paper-scissors, my three foolish seniors all lost.
“Ugh—what is this, again this year!”
“I knew this would happen.”
“The first thing I do in the New Year is work with you bastards. Worst start ever.”
While they grumbled, bang. The door opened, and an employee came in carrying an armful of newspapers. “Security said the seven copies arrived by quick delivery, so I brought them up. They must’ve just been printed—the smell of ink is intense.”
He cleared the pizza off the table and laid the newspapers down in its place.
The three seniors snatched up a copy each at lightning speed.
Then Team Leader Lee took one copy, two staffers from another team took two, and the last newspaper ended up in my hands. Rustle, rustle…. The moment before a new writer is born.
Everyone crowded around the papers with excited faces. “Huh?!” Senior Yoon cried, eyes going wide. “…No way.”
“Yoon Seo-hoon, what is it?”
“Don’t tell me Mok submitted to the Dongwol Daily? He debuted?”
All eyes shifted to Senior Yoon and me.
Senior Yoon glanced at me once, then began reading in a trembling voice. “...Criticism category winner. ‘On the Powerlessness of Fiction and the Reason for Its Existence – Mok Pilhyun’s Mianmok,’ by… Mok Hyunsun.’”
…I’d done it.
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
The tension slipped away all at once, and the world seemed to brighten.
Only then did I notice how thirsty I was. I gulped down my beer… and it tasted incredible.
Only then did I realize my mouth had been bitter with nerves all this time.
“Mok! Hey! Congratulations, seriously!”
“Wow—our youngest really killed it. But I knew you’d get it.”
“Me too. Congratulations, Hyunsun. Honestly, just from the reviews you’ve written, we knew you weren’t ordinary.”
“So now Gyeongseong Publishing has another critic besides Chief Editor Im? Congratulations!”
“Heh, you’re gonna be swamped with work now, aren’t you?”
Everyone smiled and applauded.
“Thank you, thank you.” I returned their congratulations with a smile of my own.
Strictly speaking, breaking into the literary world wasn’t the end—it was the beginning.
It only meant I’d earned the right to write criticism as a professional.
Still, what was I supposed to do when it felt this good?
I’d be sleeping soundly tonight, “Huh?!” Senior Yang suddenly blurted out.
This time, everyone looked at Senior Yang.
“Mok Hyunsun. You said you only submitted to one place.”
Everyone turned to stare at me, eyes wide.
They looked like they were waiting for the punchline.
“...What about it?”
“Your name’s in the Josoong Daily too. ‘The Return of the 21st-Century Modern Novel: On Park Jeong-shin.’”
“Ah.”
It got in too?
Well, sure. If you were lucky, you could land more than one.
Writers sometimes debuted through multiple outlets at once, after all.
I must’ve spent all the luck I’d ever have in my life today.
The looks people were giving me were a little hard to handle, as if I were some unbelievable creature, but all right. And then—rustle.
Senior Kim seemed to sense something and lifted his newspaper.
Then.
He lowered it with a quiet thud. “...It’s in the Joonghan Daily too. ‘What Does a Dream Dream Of? On Park Jeong-shin’s Moving Dream’… winner: Mok Hyunsun.”
“???”
What?
No, that couldn’t be. Did that make any sense? Chief Editor Im had clearly told me before that the three criticism pieces on Park Jeong-shin weren’t particularly good.
...Wait.
Could it be.
I don’t think I have anything to add to that.
So that meant “not particularly good” didn’t mean “bad”?
Meanwhile, the people’s stares had gone beyond mere pressure.
They weren’t even able to offer congratulations anymore.
“Let’s see this one too.”
Team Leader Lee said in a low voice and unfolded his paper.
He was holding the Korean Literature Daily.
What had I submitted there again? Honestly, I couldn’t even keep them straight.
Could it possibly be that one too—
“‘About the Vanity of the Cloud Called High Society _ On Park Jeong-shin’s Modern House.’ Winner: Mok Hyunsun.”
...So I had submitted that one too.
The atmosphere had turned truly bizarre.
Dozens of people were staring only at me.
Even Team Leader Lee, who was usually hard to fluster, wiped his face in disbelief.
“You, you… Mok, just how many did you—? No, forget it. We’ll know once we check them all. For now, let’s confirm the others too, all right? Hurry.”
“Ah, yes, yes. I’ll check mine first.”
The female employee from the Children’s Literature Department opened her newspaper.
She searched the culture page with visibly tense eyes, then—
“...A, amazing.”
With those two words, she conveyed the result to everyone.
“‘Women’s Literature Here and Now, Discussing O Sang-mi’s Mother’s Club and Virginia Woolf’… your name is on here too, Mr. Mok Hyunsun.”
Her voice shook.
It was as if she had encountered a monster so awe-inspiring it was almost frightening.
And then her question.
“Hyunsun. ...Were you a genius?”
There wasn’t a trace of joking in her voice.
If it were me on any ordinary day, I’d have made some self-satisfied joke in response.
Or perhaps I would have demurred modestly.
But now I really had nothing to say.
I was simply stunned speechless.
“It’s here too.”
Then another employee, before I knew it, had already opened a paper of his own.
“‘The Novel Nevertheless and—’”
“Wow….”
“This is insane….”
“No way.”
The moment the phrase Nevertheless appeared.
People let out low cries of amazement, as if they already knew enough.
“...‘Media criticism through the film Nevertheless.’”
And that was indeed a criticism I’d written.
I, Mok Hyunsun, had debuted in six newspapers at once.
It wasn’t only their eyes.
I felt as if the very air in the huge conference hall had shifted toward me.
Was this what happened when too much luck arrived at once?
By that point, I had actually become calm.
“I think those are all mine, yes. Six of them.”
“...”
“...”
No one said a word.
Instead, all their eyes drifted down to the newspaper still in my hands.
The last one, still unchecked.
In silence, they urged me on.
Hurry up and see whether your name is in there too.
Rustle.
I unfolded the paper.
The culture page opened at once.
Minute print told the story of the winning works and what they were about.
And then I saw them.
Criticism Category Winner: ‘The Mind of Fear. Literature Caught Between It – On Moon Geon-hyeong’s Nevertheless’
My article’s title.
Winner: Mok Hyunsun
My name, in three characters.
─┼
Reporter Min A-yeon from the culture desk of the Dongwol Daily arrived at Gyeongseong Publishing, grumbling under her breath. “Seriously, if they wanted an interview, they could’ve done it by phone. Why does Team Leader Lee have to make people come all the way out here? What a hassle, especially at year’s end.”
On a day like this, at this hour, the only place lit up in Paju Book City was Gyeongseong Publishing.
Which also meant just how much Gyeongseong Publishing cared about the Shinchun Moonye.
It was a bit of an inconvenience for reporter Min A-yeon, though.
“Still, I should be grateful they’re giving me something to write about.”
At the start of the year, there were always so many explosive stories that reporters competed fiercely with one another.
Getting a scoop like this wasn’t a bad thing at all.
Buzz—. On her way to the main conference room, her phone vibrated, and she checked the message.
The sender was none other than Team Leader Lee.
“Why is this old man suddenly making jokes he never used to make? And not even a funny one.” She didn’t believe it at all.
No, who would?
Someone had passed through the gate of debut not once, but seven times at once—something no one had ever done, even if they devoted their entire life to it.
There had never been anyone like that in the history of Korean literature.
And there never would be.
If there were? A genius, obviously. In music, Mozart; in art, Van Gogh.
By the time she reached the conference room door, she was thinking that much at least.
Knock, knock. She knocked and opened the door.
Strictly speaking, there was no need to do that in the middle of a party, but etiquette suited to a reporter’s dignity, perhaps.
“This is Min A-yeon from the Dongwol Daily. Team Leader Lee— ...?”
She couldn’t finish the sentence.
The main conference room was wrapped in nothing but silence.
Thanks to that, her voice rang out with unusual clarity.
Even more startling were the expressions on everyone’s faces.
They looked like people who had just witnessed some impossible natural disaster.
...What? Why are they acting like this?
And then she saw him.
The one and only person everyone’s gaze seemed to be fixed on. The tall young man was looking at the newspaper in his hand.
As he slowly turned his head, his eyes met Min A-yeon’s.
Calm eyes, eyes that had already accepted an immense reality.
At that instant, a chill raced down Min A-yeon’s spine. Her reporter’s instincts were telling her the truth.
That this man was the natural disaster.
Team Leader Lee wasn’t joking? He, he really meant it?
If so, this was the scoop of all scoops.
A story that would stun not just Gyeongseong Publishing or the Dongwol Daily, but the entire Korean literary world.