Description [Golden Paper 1] The latest work from Jo Jung-rae, author of Taebaek Mountains, The Jungle Miles, and A Thousand-Year Question—another powerful masterpiece that sharply dissects human desire and conflict surrounding money, the 'one true god' of the capitalist world. "Money is both the essence of human existence and its absurdity!" A Jo Jung-rae novel that painfully confronts one of today's most urgent issues: money, which holds the power of life and death over people and reigns as a living god. Everyone is 'pouring their soul' into investments; a family struggling with debt and hardship takes their own lives together; an elderly kimbap vendor donates her entire life savings, while newly rich parents use illegal methods to transfer wealth to their five-year-old child. The faces of people caught up in money swing between two extremes. Money is an essential means of survival, yet ironically, it can also threaten survival itself—a cruel paradox. What, then, is money, really? Jo Jung-rae, one of our era's defining novelists, poses this piercing question to readers today. Jo Jung-rae is the author of the acclaimed historical trilogy on modern Korean history—Taebaek Mountains, Arirang, and Hangang—which introduced fifteen million readers to the true face of Korea's modern history. Through novels like The Jungle Miles, Even Wildflowers Are Flowers, and A Thousand-Year Question, he has directly tackled the core issues running through contemporary Korean society. Now, four years after his last work, he releases his new novel Golden Paper (2 volumes). Spanning roughly 1,800 manuscript pages, this work unfolds a tragic panorama of human beings entangled by money, sounding an alarm about a society growing increasingly dehumanized by the worship of wealth. Synopsis Lee Tae-ha, once a brilliant and driven leader of the student movement in college, becomes a promising young prosecutor and is assigned to investigate corruption at a major conglomerate. When he objects to his superiors' attempts to whitewash the investigation as usual, he can't withstand the internal pressure within the prosecution and resigns to become a lawyer. He builds a reputation as an incorruptible human rights attorney fighting for justice. Around Lee Tae-ha, a constant stream of clients caught in conflicts over money seek him out. His high school friends Park Hyun-kyu and Yoon Min-seo introduce him to various cases and support his work. Above all, disputes among families over inheritance never cease: a daughter suing to seize the inheritance her late father left to her mother; daughters demanding equal shares while sons fight for more, even raiding the family safe. Those who have nothing suffer even more. A restaurant owner is jailed for assaulting a predatory landlord who suddenly demanded a fourfold rent increase. An elderly man living alone barely survives by delivering cigarettes and alcohol to teenagers for a small fee, until he's caught by police. Where does desire driven by money ultimately lead? Park Hyun-kyu's daughter breaks up with her boyfriend to date a wealthy man, only to be stalked by her ex and suffer an unexpected tragedy. Park Kyung-sook, a successful pharmacist who owns a building worth over ten billion won in Gangnam, is famous for her extreme frugality, even picking up discarded radish greens at the market. But when her son becomes addicted to gambling, her building is suddenly put up for auction. Bae Seung-woo and Lee Dong-wook lose their family fortunes to gambling, dragging their families into tragedy. Yoon Min-seo's cousin Yoon Han-seo is shocked when his father, a widower in his seventies who has lived alone for years, announces he plans to formally marry a middle-aged woman. His siblings gather to try to talk their father out of it, worried about the inheritance. But their father scolds them, telling them how devotedly the woman has cared for him—even tasting his urine to monitor his diabetes. Jeon Jin-hye, a job-seeker despairing over repeated rejections, is introduced through her mother's friend to a position caring around the clock for an elderly, immobile chairman. Hoping that if she gains his favor, his apartment might one day become hers, she is stunned when, after his sudden death, she receives an unexpected will. Yoon Min-seo's cousin on her father's side learns belatedly that her father, who suffered from dementia, had pledged his entire fifty-billion-won estate to a university before he died, and decides to sue the university. Yoon Min-seo asks Lee Tae-ha to take the case, mentioning a legal fee of one billion won. Today too, clients desperate over money knock urgently on the door of attorney Lee Tae-ha's office—a human rights lawyer with roots in the student movement.