A gripping tale of love, food and one woman’s unconventional quest to support her family. I am no ordinary ajumma. I am a killer When Mrs Shim – widowed, unemployed, with two children at home and a fridge to fill – answers a job ad at the Smile Detective Agency, she boosts its fortunes forever. … [Read More]
Archives: Books (page 10)
Seeking You
Jeong Ho-seung’s Seeking You, translated from Korean by Brother Anthony of Taizé, explores human existence through an interconnectivity to nature and the cosmos. His poems foster a poetic voice that is filled with child wonder and aged wisdom—an approach that extends both humor and analytical depth. Seeking You stands as a testament to a poet’s … [Read More]
Reactionary Politics in South Korea: Historical Legacies, Far-Right Intellectuals, and Political Mobilization
In December 2024, South Korean president Yoon Seok-yeol stunned the world by declaring martial law. More puzzling was that Yoon’s insurrection unexpectedly gained substantial support from the ruling right-wing party and many citizens. Why do ordinary citizens support authoritarian leaders and martial law in a democratic country? What draws them to extreme actions and ideas? … [Read More]
From Manners to Rules: Advocating for Legalism in South Korea and Japan
From Manners to Rules traces the emergence of legalistic governance in South Korea and Japan. While these countries were previously known for governance characterized by bureaucratic discretion and vague laws, activists and lawyers are pushing for a more legalistic regulatory style. Legalism involves more formal, detailed, and enforceable rules and participatory policy processes. Previous studies … [Read More]
Korean New Religions
Korea has an unusually diverse religious culture. In the north, Juche, which has taken on religious overtones, monopolizes articulations of beliefs and values as well as ritual practice. In the south, no single religion dominates, with over half saying that they have no specific religious affiliation. The remainder report being Protestant, Buddhist, and Catholic. Smaller … [Read More]
Two Women Living Together
At some point between living alone and becoming single, Hwang Sunwoo and Kim Hana found each other, and decided to live together in a nice apartment where their four cats would finally have the freedom to run around. Together they became a family – and redefined it. At a time housing costs have skyrocketed whilst … [Read More]
Orange and the Bread Knife
The thrilling high-concept Korean bestseller about conforming to society’s standards, where one woman decides she has HAD ENOUGH Oh Young-a, a warm-hearted schoolteacher, lives to please – smiling through people’s demands, moulding her hobbies and even her heart to match what others deem to be “right”. But beneath her cheerful facade, the weight of constant … [Read More]
Swell
Each story in Swell launches from the common but pivotal moments that determine the course of everyday life, but they’re often filtered through the perspective of someone else: documentarians, novelists, storytellers, gossips. Then, as the stories build atop one another and intertwine, they begin to shift and destabilize. Characters return but their histories are changed, alternate timelines … [Read More]
The Legend of Lady Byeoksa
A tale of star-crossed lovers, political intrigue and mysticism inspired by Korean mythology and set in the Joseon dynasty. ‘Whether I remember or not, it seems I am destined to love you.’ Lady Seomun Bin has a secret: she is a cross-dressing byeoksa, or ghost-stalker. Born with the unenviable ability to see spirits, she is … [Read More]
A Plagued Sea [forthcoming]
Visionary Korean author Kim Bo-young unleashes a Lovecraftian nightmare of infection, transformation, and abomination. “[Kim Bo-young’s] fiction is a breathtaking piece of a cinematic art.” –Bong Joon-ho, Academy Award-winning director of Parasite While waiting for a train to Haewon, an isolated Korean seaside village, bodyguard Mu-young gets a disaster alert on her phone. TVs throughout the … [Read More]
With the Heart of a Ghost: Stories
With the Heart of a Ghost is a debut collection of eight fantastical stories translated by Chi-Young Kim (Whale) that explore feelings unseen, unconveyed, unexplainable. The funny, meditative characters who inhabit this book are pulled far from their ordinary daily routines to stare straight into their own sorrows, however they manifest. Ghosts and otherworldly occurrences … [Read More]
The Memory Bookshop
For lovers of The Midnight Library and Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, discover a spellbinding novel about a mysterious bookshop that exists outside of time and space, where the past is only a page away… If you’re lost, you’ll find The Memory Bookshop Where the shelves are endless. The books, strangely familiar. And where memories are bound in … [Read More]
Every Day I Read: 53 Ways to Get Closer to Books
From the internationally bestselling author of Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop comes a warm and reflective collection of essays about reading, language and life. Why do we read? What is it that we hope to take away from the intimate, personal experience of reading for pleasure? Rarely do we ask these profound, expansive questions of ourselves and … [Read More]
Korean Buddhism: Selected Readings from Primary Texts
This book presents the first comprehensive introduction to Korean Buddhism through twenty-five key primary texts spanning the seventh to twenty-first centuries. All have been expertly translated by leading scholars in the field. The volume introduction provides an overview of major themes that illuminates the diverse sources that follow. The texts, each prefaced by a brief … [Read More]
The Promised Republic: Developmental Society and the Making of Modern Seoul, 1961-1979
In The Promised Republic, Russell Burge offers a bold new history of South Korea’s rapid development. By focusing on the experience of rural-to-urban migrants who built and lived in Seoul’s shantytowns, Burge historicizes national development as a site of struggle with the urban poor at its center. What would a society of postcolonial abundance look like? … [Read More]
A Nation Within: North Korean Zainichi in Postimperial Japan
The presence of hundreds of thousands ethnic Koreans in Japan, or “zainichi Koreans,” is one of the visible legacies of Japanese colonialism. A surprising and influential group among zainichi Koreans that persists to this day is Chongryon, the only pro–North Korean diasporic group based in a capitalist society. Chongryon historically represented the central grassroots force … [Read More]