Perhaps, like me, at the start of the pandemic in 2020, you found yourself wondering if this was it? Might civil society as we know it be about to disintegrate? How would communities cope, would selfishness or cooperation prevail? These themes and much more are addressed in a novel from South Korea by Choi Jin-Young which predates the arrival of Covid-19 by a whole year, and was translated into English by Soje in 2021.

After a global pandemic leads to the collapse of the world economic system and the complete breakdown of communications infrastructure, Jin-Young follows her characters on their exodus from the Korean Peninsula, as they move through Russia during a hard winter. Where are they heading and will things be better or safer when they get there? What made them decide to leave and venture into the unknown? Were they happy in their previous existences before the pandemic struck? Is it possible to trust, or find happiness and human connection even in such traumatic times?

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