Second-generation Banpo real estate broker publishes debut fiction collection 'The Naked Face of the Rich'

Yang Seok-young, who runs a second-generation licensed real estate agency in Banpo, Seoul, under the pen name Baek Sojang, is releasing his debut fiction collection, "The Naked Face of the Rich — Money and People as Witnessed Over 47 Years by a Second-Generation Gangnam Real Estate Broker."

Yang took over the agency his father opened in Banpo in 1979. His father served as reconstruction committee chairman for the Raemian Firstige commercial complex and was active in the local community for many years.

Yang spent nearly a decade each at the Korea Financial Investment Association in Yeouido and in the Gangnam real estate market, gaining broad experience across finance and property. As a field expert on Gangnam's high-end apartment market, he has appeared on all three major terrestrial broadcasters and various other media outlets.

The collection draws on the wide range of people Yang encountered over his long career as a real estate broker. The book contains six stories in which money, family and desire become entangled — a dispute between siblings over an inheritance, an elderly building owner who refuses to sell a vacant property, the loneliness of an old man living alone in a large mansion, a mother-daughter conflict over a single home, and a grandchild scheming after a grandfather's assets. Through these stories, the book examines human nature concealed beneath wealth and the fractures it creates in family relationships.

In the book's prologue, Yang writes: "In Yeouido, I saw numbers. In Gangnam, I saw the people hiding behind those numbers." The work focuses on the human relationships and desires concealed beneath Gangnam's glittering real estate market, weaving together the many stories Yang encountered through years of brokerage work and his own literary imagination.

"The Naked Face of the Rich" is set for release Nov. 10, with exclusive pre-orders opening Friday on Kyobo Book Centre's online store.