Author: Kim Min-jeong
Translated by: Jeon Seung-hee
Publisher: Asia Publishers, 2016
Original title: 세상에서 가장 비싼 소설
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When does life become art? How does life become art? Above all, I still don’t know an answer to the question why life should become art. I might be trying very hard to ignore the answer even though I know it. I still lack the thing called courage. But at least I have the courage to say that I lack courage. Even now, I don’t forget that I am a writer.
From Writer’s Note
How effective would a novel today be as a means of spreading a cool-minded capitalist’s ideology and morality? And if it is indeed effective, how did this absurd situation- the emergence of a patron novel- come about? By having us ask these questions, Kim Min-Jung’s “The World’s Most Expensive Novel” can be viewed as a masterpiece that effectively materializes the narrator’s stated intention: “[T]his writing of mine will offer opportunity to reflect on the nature of literature in a most anti-artistic way.”
From Commentary