This is the first full monograph on the widely acclaimed South Korean director Lee Chang-dong (born 1954), whose 2018 film Burning was the first Korean production shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. With his six features made since taking up filmmaking at the age of 43 (after working as a novelist), Lee has distinguished himself … [Read More]
Archives: Books (page 17)
Snowy Day and Other Stories
The first story collection published in English by Lee Chang-dong, one of South Korea’s most celebrated and influential literary and cinematic figures. Much like Lee Chang-dong’s internationally renowned films (Burning, Secret Sunshine, and Poetry), these brilliant, unsettling tales, originally published in Korea in the 1980s and now translated into English for the first time, investigate … [Read More]
MASH
Before the movie, this is the novel that gave life to Hawkeye Pierce, Trapper John, Hot Lips Houlihan, Frank Burns, Radar O’Reilly, and the rest of the gang that made the 4077th MASH like no other place in Korea or on earth. The doctors who worked in the Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH) during the … [Read More]
Ten Thousand Sorrows
I don’t know how old I was when I watched my mother’s murder, nor do I know how old I am today.’ The illegitimate daughter of a peasant and an American GI, Elizabeth Kim spent her early years as a social outcast in her village in the Korean countryside. Ostracized by their family and neighbours, … [Read More]
Sun & Ssukgat: The Korean Art of Self-Care, Wellness, and Longevity
A charming guide to living a longer, happier, healthier life, rooted in Korean self-care For centuries, Korean families have shared wellbeing wisdom with loved ones, like gifted heirlooms passed down from generation to generation, to prevent and treat early illness. The idea is to stop symptoms before they become chronic, taking inspiration from the ssukgat, … [Read More]
Young-hee and the Pullocho
Set in Korea, this multicultural, middle-reader novel is the riveting story of a magical realm, a little girl, her brother and a daring rescue. So annoying…In Young-hee’s life everything feels wrong. It seemed like only yesterday that her world was just as it should be. But now her dad is gone, her mom is overextended, … [Read More]
Balli Balli: Quick Korean recipes for every day
Exciting Korean recipes for people with busy lives that want delicious meals in a hurry. Recreate your favourite Korean takeaway with this collection of over 70 super speedy recipes. Simple and quick recipes to whip up in your kitchen for easy weeknight dinners. Korea is often described as having a balli, balli culture (balli translates … [Read More]
Hidden Heroes: Anthology of North Korean Fiction
Hidden Heroes is a collection of short stories from the 1980s to present that unveil the lives of ordinary North Koreans. Through themes of identity, community, and power, it reveals a complex society, offering readers a nuanced understanding beyond prevailing stereotypes Hidden Heroes offers a rare and intimate glimpse into the lives of ordinary North … [Read More]
Come Down to a Lower Place
Seul, a construction project manager, investigates a foul stench beneath the premier department store in Seoul. Hidden records from the building’s construction during the colonial era hint at madness. The only clue is a cryptic phrase: “Bin-o-jae.” Beneath the glittering showroom, she uncovers secrets tied not only to workers’ suffering and capitalism’s horrors, but to … [Read More]
The Call of the Friend
University student Wonjun visits his friend Jingu’s basement apartment, only to find unsettling changes that are somehow tied to a K-pop star’s suicide. Jingu behaves coldly, a strange statue looms in the corner, and reality begins to fracture. Blurring the lines between hallucination and nightmare, this graphic novel by JaeHoon Choi explores guilt and despair … [Read More]
Alien Gods
Minsuh, an anthropology student researching shamanistic rituals and the mudangs who perform them, has dismissed the supernatural her whole life. To her, mudangs are performers skilled at pleasing researchers. But as she gets deeper into her research, she’s afflicted with a mysterious shinbyeong — a holy sickness unique to Korea — causing her to start … [Read More]
Vestiges of the Three Kingdoms of Ancient Korea: A Translation of the Samguk yusa
Vestiges of the Three Kingdoms of Ancient Korea (Samguk yusa) is the first annotated English translation of one of the most important premodern Korean historical texts. One of only two surviving works on the Three Kingdoms period (57 BCE–668) and Greater Silla (668–936), the Samguk yusa is a rich collection of historical, supernatural, and mythical stories, including one of … [Read More]
Fish, Fishing and Community in North Korea and Neighbours: Vibrant Matter(s)
This open access book explores the histories and geographies of fishing in North Korea and the surrounding nations. With the ideological and environmental history of North Korea in mind, the book examines the complex interactions between local communities, fish themselves, wider ecosystems and the politics of Pyongyang through the lens of critical geography, fisheries statistics … [Read More]
New Goddess on Mount Paektu: Myth and Transformation in North Korean Landscape
The ‘Paektusan Generals’ have ruled supreme over North Korea since 1948, three Kims to rule them all. North Korean historiography, ideology and statecraft have it that Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un are everything from Alpha to Omega as far as power and charisma is concerned in Pyongyang. Historians might of … [Read More]
Brothers Under a Same Sky
Nam Kun and Nam Ki Han, brothers born on a Wahiawa sugar plantation, could not have been more different. Pragmatic and stubborn, Nam Kun dutifully supported his family but refused to become “one Christian fanatic” like his widowed mother and youngest sibling, Nam Ki. When Nam Ki is drafted into the army at the start … [Read More]
A Ricepaper Airplane
From a hospital bed a dying man unfolds the tale of an arduous life on the fringes of a Hawai‘i sugar plantation in the 1920s. There Kim Sung Wha—laborer, patriot, revolutionary, aviator—envisioned building an airplane from ricepaper, bamboo, and the scrap parts of a broken-down bicycle, an airplane that would carry him back to his … [Read More]