Kim Young-ha, 42, has put out a collection of 13 short stories, whose tentative English title is “Who Knows What Happened.” The title is at once mischievously misleading and meticulously calculated. After all, it is apparently only Kim himself who really knows what happened to his characters set in an often desolate and infinitely trite urban landscape where reality and fantasy intertwine with one another.

But Kim is generous enough to intersperse his thought-provoking tales with nuanced symbolism and startlingly delightful details in a way that satisfies postmodern readers craving the sheer pleasure of reading.

Many of Kim’s new characters grapple with a bewildering development: a woman having an affair with a robot; a singer whose voice is gone overnight; a couple digesting fishy ice cream. No definite answer is given for what they should do about their debacles. Something closer to truth constantly remains elusive, possibly leaving the readers with a belated realization that such a portrayal is eerily familiar, especially considering their own troubled urban life.

The opening tale, titled “Robot,” encapsulates Kim’s tongue-in-cheek approach toward what it means to be a human. Its central character Soo-kyung, a female worker at a travel agency, comes off as a typical person saddled with a dilemma, at least initially. She is having an affair with her boss at the office, partly due to her sense of responsibility for her crippled brother. Her co-workers already know about the illicit relationship, which she feels intensely burdened by on a daily basis, but there’s nothing she can do about it. She simply compares what she has to endure to a stranger’s wet umbrella touching her leg on a crowded subway.

When a sort of breakthrough arrives, it comes with a bang that mystifies Soo-kyung. A handsome man, who claims he’s a robot, introduces “Three Laws of Robotics,” a set of three rules written by Isaac Asimov, starting with “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.”

Kim Young-ha, a leading Korean writer, has put out a collection of 13 short stories that is not only thought-provoking but also delightful in thematic creativity and character portrayal.                                                                                                                                             Yonhap News

It remains unclear whether the self-styled robot is a top-notch playboy with his sleight of hand shrewdly positioned in telling a preposterous robot theory to charm an unsuspecting woman. What’s certain, though, is that Soo-kyung and her counterpart, whose “human” name is Mun-sang, launch a verbal game in which they make up whatever stories that justify and gratify their needs -- a desire for sex, intimacy and escape from the depressingly mediocre daily routines. Author Kim kindly highlights the literary signpost by inserting phrases such as “a sense of liberation,” referring to Soo-kyung’s emotional state when she pretends to be a different person by creating her stories.

Soo-kyung’s storytelling obviously has an equalizing quality that softens her life of unfairness and helplessness. But the story has another, much deeper layer asking a question: Are we humans better than order-oriented robots? From this point on, Kim does not give away an easy answer; he simply asks his readers to “take time to think” about the dilemma of humans in relation to a clever robot who is not only seductive but also disturbingly persuasive.

In the 269-page collection published by Munhakdongnae, other stories exhibit equally intriguing food for thought in a style that reflects Kim’s trademark speed and refinement.

What distinguishes “Who Knows…” from Kim’s previous works is the process through which the collection hit the bookshelves.

Kim, widely known as a tech-savvy writer who regularly broadcasts an audio podcast about literature, finalized the Korean title of the collection, “Museun Ili Ileonatneunjineun Amudo,” in cyberspace. He wrote an entry about his new creation on his blog (http://kimyoungha.co.kr) and asked visitors and fans to express their preference among several candidate titles. A book trailer, created by a media artist, is also posted on his blog, featuring Kim’s own reading of a section of a story in the collection. He tweeted about his new book, which immediately echoed throughout the network of Korean Twitter users interested in literature. Although Kim modestly downplays his blogging, tweeting and podcasting as a “promenade” that offers intermittent contact with the outside world, his online prowess is clearly a rare strength whose benefits go far beyond a mere promenade.

One small piece of evidence: the English title “Who Knows What Happened” is what Kim typed in English on his iPad and sent directly to this reporter via Twitter.

By Yang Sung-jin (insight@heraldm.com)