“Already a highly acclaimed short story author in her native South Korea, the sky is the limit for Lee Yuri, whose debut novel CLOUD PEOPLE will announce her as a major voice in global literature. Told with a distinctive, highly original voice, this is a speculative-dystopian novel with a hearty helping of social critique, as Lee examines environmental precarity, displacement, marginalization and inequity, the exploitative heart of capitalism, and domestic abuse. We are on cloud nine to have CLOUD PEOPLE join the HarperVia list, and are excited to introduce English readers to a world-class talent.” –acquiring editor Alexa Frank, HarperOne Group
Cloud People follows Ha-nul, a young woman born into skybound slums supported on a cloud that floats 1.5 kilometres above the ground. What used to be white, weightless masses against a backdrop of blue sky have turned into poisonous, pink eyesores that are dense enough to support the luckless families that call the clouds home. Life on the clouds is marked by poverty, instability, and disdain from the “ground people,” who consider the cloud dwellers dangerous and inferior. Rumors circulate that the authorities will release seeding particles into Ha-nul’s cloud to create artificial rain, which would cause the cloud to melt and destroy homes and lives. Even as Ha-nul and her cloud neighbors fret over rumors of the artificial rain that constantly loom over their existence, they are unsure how to create actual change. Daily survival, from securing food to earning wages, overshadows even impending annihilation.
Through fragmented vignettes, Ha-nul observes her father’s grueling construction work, her mother’s endless cleaning jobs, her brother’s naïve dreams of escaping through technology and fame, the fleeting moments of connection shared with her only friend and fellow cloud inhabitant Won, and the quiet presence of Won’s grandmother Madam Chun, who faithfully operates the pulley system connecting the cloud to the ground. The novel contrasts these struggles with glimpses of bitter humor and tenderness, even as Ha-nul is forced to relinquish all that she knows and accept the terms of an unforgiving reality until an expected turn of events upends her life.