VOL.69/2024.04

Copyright Agent’s Pick

2022.09.05

As a copyright agent working at the forefront of the copyright business, there is a unique “sense” that years of experience give you. It would be great to give a clear definition for that sense, but as you know, senses are difficult to explain logically. For content to be loved by global citizens crossing the linguistic and geological barriers, a number of elements have to be at play. Among the many elements, if I were to pick only two, I would choose “universal,” and “unique.” Content that has a universally understood story and a specialty differentiated from existing content is highly likely to be loved by readers around the world across borders.

Cheon Seon-Ran is the author that I’m particularly paying attention to as a copyright agent. Her book A Thousand Blues (East-Asia Publishing Co.), which sold the copyright to countries such as Japan and Germany as the winner of the Korea SF Award in 2019 for full-length stories, compares favorably to Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, the winner of the 2017 Nobel Literature Prize. The book has been at the center of attention by describing human’s coexistence with animals and machines in the near future with heartwarming sentences where all sorts of cutting-edge technologies and AI lead our society.

* K-Book Trends Vol. 30 – Go to the interview with writer Cheon Seon-Ran

Moreover, the short-story collection No Land (Hanibook) released recently introduces various events taking place on an extraordinary world. The 10 stories reveal the different incidents occurring in the “Land Without a Name,” and the writer’s way of describing each event warms our hearts. Among the stories, the one titled Bakita begins with a being named Bakita appearing on Earth out of nowhere as the blue sky cracks open one day. Bakita begins to gulp down man-made artificial chemical compounds, and humanity returns to the era when they emitted the greatest amount of single-use products, leaving all the trash to Bakita. In the end, Bakita ends up eating all the things that humanity had made, including trash.
So, this book awakens the awareness of environmental degradation and makes us imagine the possibility of a new earth where humans can live. AI that has become a human, the world where there’s no death, and two humans living inside a single body... The imagination and the power of pushing the storyline forward are just magnificent. Each character in the novel asks questions about “belief” in each other, which is the part where they feel deeply ashamed of the world where people are no longer trust worthy.

Another book I would like to introduce to readers in other countries is Mr. Munch, You’re Dopamine Overload (Gimm-young publishing). Dr. Ahn Chul-Woo from Gangnam Severance Hospital’s Endocrinology Diabetes Center, who has appeared on several TV shows, hypnotizes his readers by combining health tips and art. Through famous art pieces that we are familiar with, he introduces 14 major hormones such as endorphin – the hormone of love and passion, serotonin – the hormone of happiness, and myokine – a hormone that energizes cells in our body.
Norwegian expressionist painter Munch strolled along the edge of the fjord at sunset with his friends. Then, for a moment, he felt like the blood red sky was on the verge of swallowing the world. There, the cause for his impulsiveness and anxiety was “dopamine.” Dopamine, as a love hormone, enables love at first sight, but once overloaded, it causes impulse and obsession that stimulate drastic emotions. So, Munch’s “The Scream” is a work that best depicts his emotional state in which dopamine is excessively secreted.
Dr. Ahn also talks about Vincent van Gogh. He left so many beautiful artworks, such as “The Starry Night” and “Sunflowers,” but he went mad cutting his own ear off, eventually committing suicide at the age of 37, leading to him sometimes being referred to as “the icon of misfortune.” Professor Ahn doubted that maybe Van Gogh also had an excess of dopamine that made him obsessed with the yellow color. He also looks at other globally-renowned artworks from a fresh point of view, such as “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo da Vinci, “Nighthawks” by Edward Hopper, and Rene Magritte’s “The Magician.” In short, you can catch two birds with one stone – appreciating masterpieces and learning hormonal health.

Written by Richard Hong (President of BC Agency and book columnist)