Making new friends is always exciting, especially if they share your interests and understand the hurdles of what you do.

Two writers, one from Korea and the other from Thailand, meet for the first time during a literary event in Korea and shared their thoughts about each others’ work.

Thai writer Uthis Haemamool and Korean writer Yun I-hyeong are among the 20 writers participating in this year’s Seoul International Writers’ Festival. The literary bash, which also serves as a networking event among writers from different countries, is organized annually by Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea).

French writer Philippe Besson, Germany’s Jakob Hein, Korean writer Jung Young-moon and British writer Ivy Alvarez are among the writers attending this year.

Yun, 36, and Haemamool,35, were paired up as a team by LTI Korea, and have been attending the event since Monday. They went on sightseeing tours on Jeju, enjoyed local food, and talked about each other’s work.

For Haemamool, this is his first time visiting Korea. The Thai author had read Shin Kyung-sook’s “Please Look after Mom” prior to coming to Seoul, as well as Hwang Soon-won’s collection of short stories. But reading Yun’s short story, “Parang, the Big Wolf” was rather a refreshing experience for him.

“It’s a fantasy story,” Haemamool told Yun during a press meeting in Seoul on Wednesday.

“It’s weird and almost violent in a good way. I could really feel for the character who loses his hope and youth.”

Yun, who is noted for her fantasy and sci-fi works, said it’s meaningful to hear a foreign writer talk about her work.

“I sometimes think it would be hard even for the locals to really understand my works,” Yun, who is participating in the event for the first time, told The Korea Herald. “So I’m very grateful for Haemamool’s thoughts on my work. It’s an honor, really.”

Yun, who was a journalist before turning into a full-time writer, wrote the story dealing with migrant workers as she became angry while working on an assignment. “I was asked to write about migrant workers,” Yun said. “I don’t want to get into details, but the things I was asked to do with my interviewees, for the sake of writing the story, really made me angry. That’s what made me write this story.”

In response to that, Haemamool jokingly said one of the major reasons why he writes is his urge to take “revenge” against against his late father. His award-winning novel “The Brotherhood of Kaeng Khoi” about a dysfunctional family is based on his own family and his father, who was abusive towards him.

“There are many things that I found familiar with in this novel,” said Yun about Haemamool’s work. “Including the part where the tree absorbs the spirits. It was very much like Korea’s shamanism.”

The festival, which celebrates its fourth edition this year, kicked off on Jeju Island on Monday.

There, the 20 writers went on sightseeing tours, visited a folk village, and enjoyed local food. Their Seoul program, which consists of reading sessions and free discussions, started on Wednesday.

Both Yoon and Haemamool read out excerpts from their novels, “Parang, the Big Wolf,” and “The Brotherhood of Kaeng Khoi” in their native language on Wednesday.

The festival runs until this Saturday.

By Claire Lee (dyc@heraldcorp.com)