[Focus on Author] Jeon Seungtae, It’s Okay Here / Jeon Gihwa
For “Focus on Author,” literary critic Jeon Gihwa met with novelist Jeon Seungtae, whose short-story collection It’s Okay Here was published recently, nine years after the publication of his previous short-story collection. By combining a measured analysis of short stories with the novelist’s frank narratives, the essay reveals the virtue of this book of short stories, which warmly examine various connected lives that look heterogeneous. She reveals the novelist’s subtlety in carefully capturing moments in his stories when characters, who appear disconnected, are reconnected, as well as values that change over time. It’s a careful report on an interview in which the literary critic traces novelist Jeon’s literary keywords through his works dealing with important matters in Korean society.