This volume has been published after being selected as the winner of the 12th Changbi Prize for Young Adult Fiction with the agreement of all the jury members and the enthusiastic praises of the 134 adolescent jury members. Through Pa-Int, Lee Hee-young unfolds provocative imagination that others would have entertained at one time. The book presents the image of an unusual future society where a childrearing community based on a state-established center has been realized and adolescents choose their parents after interviewing candidates. This is an outstanding work that asks, from the perspective of teenagers, what “good” parents are and, furthermore, what the meaning of the family is.
Pa-Int is a novel beginning with the subversive imagination that adolescents, in a period in life when they start to broaden in awareness and develop a sense of their own identities, can choose the family members whom they will live with. Noteworthy strengths are vivid dialogues and absorbing development, which will prompt readers to turn one page after another.
The protagonist, Zenu is a mature, thoughtful 17-year-old boy who has grown up in the state-established NC Center. As with all children in the center, he has a right to interview and choose from prospective parents who visit the institution in order to adopt him. The curious title of the novel, “pa-int” is the children’s slang term for “parent interviews.” Since he was 13 years old, the boy has held these pa-ints for four years. However, he has been repeatedly disappointed by the prospective parents, who are interested solely in receiving various welfare benefits from the government through adoption without having any heartfelt yearning for children. Zenu must leave the center alone if he fails to choose a pair of parents by the age of 20. He has around two more years left. Will the hero be able to meet his parents?
Changbi Books
