
In "Almond," a boy with alexithymia struggles to feel emotions after tragedy strikes. Winner of the Changbi Prize, this haunting Korean bestseller explores what makes us human through an unlikely friendship that teaches the most powerful lesson - sometimes the greatest strength is vulnerability.
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What would happen if you watched your grandmother murdered and felt nothing? Not shock, not grief, not even fear-just clinical observation, as if watching a documentary. This is the reality for Yunjae, a sixteen-year-old boy whose amygdalae-the almond-shaped brain structures that process emotions-are unusually small. Born with alexithymia, he experiences the world without the emotional filter the rest of us take for granted. On Christmas Eve, violence erupts in his neighborhood. Six people die, including his beloved grandmother. His mother survives but slips into a coma. And Yunjae? He simply observes, his face blank as a winter sky. This isn't a story about a boy learning to be good-it's about a boy learning to be human.