Our Happy Time

With over a million copies sold in South Korea, this is a gripping and passionate death row love story for fans of Please Look After Mother, vividly told by a major Korean talent.

Yu-Jung – beautiful, wealthy, bright – is lying in her hospital bed, recovering from her third suicide attempt, when she receives a visit that will change her life. Her no-nonsense aunt, a nun, appears by her side, and suggests Yu-Jung might accompany her on a charitable visit to death row. At her lowest ebb, Yu-Jung is resistant. But something compels her to go to the prison. There she meets Yun-Soo, a convicted murderer who will soon be put to death. And, though repulsed by his crimes, something about the depth of his suffering strikes a chord in her. Shaken by their encounter, she returns to visit him the next week. And the next...

Through their weekly, hour-long meetings Yu-Jung and Yun-Soo slowly reveal to each other the dark secrets of their pasts, the hidden traumas that have shaped their lives. In doing so they form a deep, unbreakable bond, helping one another to overcome their demons. But Yun-Soo’s hands are always in cuffs, the prison-officers are always in the back­ground, and they can never lose sight of the fact that their happy time together is tragically brief.

Poetic and vividly told, Our Happy Time is a passionate and heart-breaking love story. It is also an important, hard-hitting and compassionate fable for our times – a story about crime, punishment, and forgiveness from a major Korean talent.

Gong Ji-young is one of Korea’s most beloved and critically acclaimed novelists. She has sold over 10 million books in South Korea alone. Her awards include the 2011 Yisand Literary Award, the 21st Century Literary Award, Korean Novel Prize, Special Media Award and Amnesty Interna­tional for Our Happy Time. This is Gong’s first novel to be translated into English. Her books are published in China, Thailand and Japan.