문학과 지성사

An urban elegy in the mouth of the moon, the body of shadow.

Shim Boseon’s first poetry collection published 14 years after his debut in 1994, Fifteen Seconds Without Sorrow remains the poet’s magnum opus to this day. A poet and a sociologist, Shim constructs a rare poetic space where a thorough observation of the real world, a vivid, experiential writing that penetrates that observation, and the capability to maintain the distance between those two, along with subtle yet pervasive details and humor constitute an unsettling balance. As did Baudelaire and Benjamin, who wandered in their respective city to grasp its boundless shadow and melancholy at the advent of modern capitalism, Shim Boseon writes of his original contemplation on philosophy and life in the late capitalist society with its ever-so-gloomy outlook.