India, July 4 -- 1You were born in Korea, educated in the US, and your work spans the world. Do you think of yourself as belonging to a particular literary tradition? I believe that I am coming at the end of a very long and celebrated tradition of Korean literature. Korean literature has a couple of distinct qualities. One is pastoralism, and the other is moral duty. Pastoralism means that we are a people who deeply revere nature and see ourselves as one with it. In Korean philosophy, we call it "All is one, one is all." We have literature that celebrates nature, and that has heavily influenced my own writing. The second part is that a writer or a novelist in the Korean context is not someone who just writes a book and is done with it. There is a word, "mun-in", which means "a person of letters." They don't just write in one genre - they write across fiction and poetry, are well-versed in philosophy, history, ethics, and engage in painting and calligraphy. Above all, a mun-in is someone who has a moral duty to society. That tradition is also how I view my artistry. My artistry is not separate from my advocacy - it's all one, and that comes directly from the Korean school of thought. 2Your short-story collection, A Love Story from the End of the World, which was published recently, looks towards the future - to near-dystopian, climate-altered worlds. What feels most urgent to you, on this front, right now? I felt so urgent about publishing a book about ecological destruction that I wanted it to come out as soon as possible. I published it exactly 365 days after my second novel. I only write about things that I'm obsessed with. My first book was about my roots. My second was about art. My third is about nature - and nature might be the most important to me on the deepest level. We're seeing an acceleration of planetary destruction, and I wanted to do what I could to bring attention to it. 3You've said before that writing can be a form of conservation; that beauty itself can be a political act. How do you hold on to those beliefs in a world that feels increasingly cynical and destructive? I truly feel that art has the ability to awaken people's conscience. Even in a cynical world, that belief comes from seeing how people respond to beauty. We already know the facts, but we've become numb to them. Art allows us to feel again, an asks us to look again, even when we don't want to. 4Which artists or writers have shaped you? Leo Tolstoy has had the greatest influence on me. His responsibility didn't end between the covers of a book - it extended into the world. I see my responsibility as an artist in the same way....