One day, an acquaintance of mine, a North Korean defector living in Seoul who used to live in Japan as a zainichi Korean, entrusted me with a “novel”. His “novel” told the heartbreaking story of former Koreans living in Japan, called “returnees,” who emigrated to North Korea in 1970. He asked me if there was any way to publish the novel in Japan. He told me it was because he wanted to find his girlfriend, who had been left behind in Japan by a friend of his who had already passed away.

I had read his novel while living in India.

In India, I began to feed the stray dogs that lived near my house.

When I visited North Korea in 1997, I saw a large number of people starving to death.

I felt guilty for knowing that people were starving to death and not being able to do anything about it, so I could no longer throw away leftover food.

In developed countries like Japan, dogs without owners on the street are taken to facilities and killed in gas chambers.

One day, I witnessed a stray dog I was feeding was seriously ill.