From the award-winning author of PLEASE LOOK AFTER MOM comes this tenderly told coming-of-age story set against the political unrest of 1980s South Korea. When Jung Yoon receives word that her former professor is dying, she revisits the difficult memories of her college years, an imperfect period marked by deep friendships, profound mutual passions and lost loves.

Yoon recalls her 20-year-old self. Although still unmoored by her mother's death, she’s quietly determined to resume her university studies in Seoul after a year-long absence. Renting a rooftop studio apartment ("The first thing I unpacked was the soil from my mother's grave, still clumped together like a ball of rice”), she makes five promises to herself:

1. Start reading again.
2. Write down new words and their definitions.
3. Memorize one poem a week.
4. Do not go to Mom's grave before the Chuseok holiday.
5. Walk around the city for at least two hours every day.

"Shin’s contemplative narrative, expressed through letters, diaries, interior monologues and dialogue, captures both the preciousness of life and a constant intermingling sorrow."

A detached Yoon describes the atmosphere at the university for the arts as freewheeling. Drama majors "pos[ed] as if they were waiting for Godot," while photography students lugged around their heavy equipment, and classical Korean music students, playing their stringed gayageums, assumed prim expressions. However, with the city deeply impacted by layoffs, hunger strikes and mass demonstrations, not to mention disturbing reports of missing persons and suspicious deaths, the peaceful campus life is disrupted by the roar of shouting protesters and riot police.

Despite feeling like a runaway exile, Yoon forges friendships with two classmates: Miru, a sister-figure with a haunting past, and the attractive Myungsuh. The trio finds solace in each other’s company, exploring the changing city streets, crossing wooded paths and narrow market alleyways, taking in both people and scenery together. Miru conveys her enthusiasm for the vast expanses of sky (the dark and white clouds, blazing sunsets, haloes around the midnight moon), while Myungsuh studies the ruddy faces of manual laborers and groups of middle-aged women roasting fish in the marketplace, finding their images as compelling as Van Gogh’s character studies.

I’LL BE RIGHT THERE tells the evocative story of youth trying to find their place in the world. Shin’s contemplative narrative, expressed through letters, diaries, interior monologues and dialogue, captures both the preciousness of life and a constant intermingling sorrow. Despite carrying the weight of personal tragedy (from disappearances to deaths), each character attempts to heed their college professor’s sage advice: “Live. Until you are down to your final breath, love and fight and rage and grieve and live.”