"What is love, when a nation is lost? What is duty, when the heart is divided?" Set against the backdrop of a Korea trembling between tradition and modernity, The Heartless follows Lee Hyeong-sik—a young, educated man—torn between two women: the gentle and graceful Seon-hyeong, and the passionate, tragic Yeong-chae. As he journeys through floodwaters, farewells, and fevered revelations, Hyeong-sik must confront not only his own wavering affections but the moral paralysis of a colonized people. His indecision becomes a metaphor for an entire country at a crossroads. A revolutionary work in every sense, The Heartless (1917) is widely considered Korea’s first modern novel. Yi Kwang-su crafts an unforgettable story of love, social change, and national awakening, where the personal is inseparable from the political, and where to love truly means to act. Passionate, prophetic, and piercingly human, this novel continues to challenge, inspire, and speak to the beating hearts of readers today.