Consider the phrase “our future.” Is it just a palatable packaging for our petty, egotistical insistence that the next generation preserve our legacy in the world? We adults are arrogant enough to think the future can be measured by the standards of the past, and we try to disguise our questionable compromises as inevitable realities. Otherwise, why would the adult world work so hard to force the burgeoning dreams of the younger generation into a box, dismissing the weight of their questions about existence, death, and the universe, and insisting that their self-worth depends on the job title on their business card and the balance in their bank book? So we have to ask: what does it mean to walk the road to adulthood?


The Summer 2025 issue of KLN turns its gaze to teenagers. In composed and heartfelt essays, Lee Kkoch-nim reflects on the hidden strength she has discovered in adolescents, while Moon Kyeong-min describes his life as an elementary school teacher, writer, and parent of an autistic daughter. Lee Jongsan warns against objectifying characters while exploring the lives of young girls from history, while Pyo Myunghee shows the role of stories in shining a light on social issues. Meanwhile, the critic Cho Hyungrae examines the development of anti-growth narratives for young female protagonists in late 2010s coming-of-age movies.

Our featured author for this issue is the poet Oh Eun, whose wielding of language remains lively and playful while still holding a quiet gravity. Ko Myeong-jae’s interview and Kim Un’s critical essay take a close look at both the poet and his work. We also celebrate the prose of Moon Jinyoung and Ye Soyeon, and the poetry of Lee Young-ju and Han Yeojin, whose literary worlds grant us access to diverse sensibilities and explore the intricacies of the human mind. Last but not least, our multilingual Reviews section remains both a unique strength and a source of pride for our magazine.

People never tire of talking about the future. However, I believe that when our conversations center on young people, the older generation should be mindful to reframe our so-called future as their reality. At the very least, we can be sure that the future won’t be what we say. Because the clock of the past cannot tell the time of the future, and some transformations—what we might even call miracles—unfold gradually. The next generation’s world will no doubt seem miraculous to us, shaped by values and possibilities we cannot yet imagine, although we may no longer be here to witness it when it arrives. At the same time, such an uncertain future mustn’t be allowed to constrain the more definite present. The future means something different to the next generation than it does to us.