Yun Humyong's first novel, The Love of Dunhuang, originally published in Korea in 1982, takes as its theme the melancholy and despair common to contemporary life. The main character / narrator
is unemployed after having quit his job as a magazine reporter. He barely survives on the money his girlfriend earns. One day, he wanders through the streets of Seoul while his girlfriend is in
the hospital. He visualizes himself as a lion walking through the desert in western China under the moon. The duality of the character's feelings about his meaningful world of fantasy based on
cultural and historical content and the unreality of his ordinary life provides an escape for this lonely individual. Ultimately, it is this duality that enables him to survive in a meaningless
world.
