문학과 지성사

An imaginative adventure to withstand global-scale loneliness.

Dubbed “a culture-head saturated in new cultural phenomena born to the recent high-tech civilization” by the editorial committee at Literature and Society, Seo Jung Hak, a poet, showcases his characteristic sensitivity and humor in this amusing debut collection, The King of Adventure and Aristocrats of Coconut. In this book, the “real world” is not the natural/physical space in the conventional sense—rather, it is what we call “artificial” reality. In any case, such a distinction between what’s real and fake does not hold any water, the book argues, as we’re already living in whatever reality given to us, regardless of our preference or intention. The characters and objects in these poems are not faithful representations of the real but borrowed from other cultural creations like movies, video games, and cartoons. The thrill of this collection comes from the poet’s unreserved embrace of fictional realities and how he integrates such realities into critical discourse.