'Our Neighborhood Library' Cha In-pyo: "Many celebrities died in 2017 and 2018... I failed to treat them with warmth as someone in the same profession"

*This content was translated by AI.

Actor Cha In-pyo recalled the painful times surrounding celebrity deaths.

On the afternoon of the 27th, Cha In-pyo held a press conference at an unspecified location in Jung-gu, Seoul, to commemorate the publication of his novel 'Our Neighborhood Library' (Sagwa & Gonggam).

Regarding his process of writing the novel, Cha In-pyo stated, "I was motivated to reflect on and record in writing the process of experiencing shocks or meaningful events in daily life."

He added, "For 'Goodbye Hill,' I felt pain while watching news about a grandmother who had been forcibly taken as a comfort woman and returned home after 50 years, which led me to write the novel. For 'Their Day,' I wrote about the fact that people in the same profession sadly passed away in 2017 and 2018. As someone in the same profession, I questioned why I had not treated them with more warmth and wrote the novel based on that reflection."

'Our Neighborhood Library' is Cha In-pyo's first full-length novel in two years. It is a metafiction work featuring a modern author named 'I' who writes novels in a library, a Goguryeo-era painter named Beon-gak, and a storyline where the reader intervenes within the novel.

'Our Neighborhood Library' begins with a writer writing a novel about Beon-gak, a Goguryeo painter, every day at a neighborhood library. Beon-gak is a character who refuses to paint anything he has not seen with his own eyes. However, he is forced to paint a portrait of a nobleman using his life as collateral and finds himself in a situation where he must paint a 'dragon' whose existence has not been confirmed. One day, a 'dragon' appears before the real-life author writing in the library, shaking his desire to become a bestseller and mocking the limits of creation. The novel also depicts a self-reflective journey on how one can connect with others, such as readers met in the library.

Cha In-pyo previously published 'Someday We Will Look at the Same Star' in 2024, a work that gained attention for addressing the issue of Japanese military comfort women victims in language accessible to teenagers. That book was selected as a Korean studies textbook at the University of Oxford in the UK, solidifying his position as an author. His 2022 novel 'Mermaid Hunting' revealed concerns about environmental destruction caused by human greed and selfishness, depicting a mermaid appearing in East Coast legends and humans trying to catch the mermaid to extract oil (fish oil) and achieve immortality. The novel won the 14th Hwang Sun-wonMoon Hak-sang-eul (수상)award.

Cha In-pyo began his career as a novelist in 2009 with the full-length novel 'Goodbye Hill.' He subsequently wrote 'Their Day' and 'Someday We Will Look at the Same Star.' On this day, he published his new full-length novel, 'Our Neighborhood Library.'

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*This content was translated by AI.