North Korea is perhaps the most intriguing, infamous and enigmatic nation of our modern world. Yet how many of us know its full history, and how it came to be? How can we understand such a strange, isolated state? This new edition seeks to provide some answers to these questions. Starting with its origins in the … [Read More]
Archives: Books (page 9)
North Korea and South Korea: Monopolizing Nationalism in a Divided Peninsula
The autocratic regimes in both North Korea and South Korea attempted to legitimize their rule through efforts in nation-building but achieved different results. North Korea and South Korea: Monopolizing Nationalism in a Divided Peninsula seeks to answer: How did these regimes’ nation-building strategies through a variety of tools and venues differ in the process of regime development? … [Read More]
Eyewitness Korea: The Experience of British and American Soldiers in the Korean War 1950-1953
Today the Korean War of 1950-1953 is overshadowed by later twentieth-century conflicts in Vietnam and the Middle East, yet at the time it was the focus of international attention. It threatened to lead to a third world war, and although fought on a limited scale, it still involved over a million men under UN command … [Read More]
Minbak
The night the baby without a surname was born, the army rolled into his mother’s town Incheon, South Korea, 1985. The country is revolting against a dictatorship, but in the local boarding-house, the chaos inside is only just beginning. When Hana is pulled from school to work in her family’s minbak, all she wants is … [Read More]
A Love Story from the End of the World
From the acclaimed author of Beasts of a Little Land and Reese’s Book Club pick City of Night Birds, an exquisite, globetrotting story collection about humans in precarious balance with the natural world. Spanning multiple locations and times, and rendered in fine detail and vivid color, this transportive, expansive collection shows what it means to … [Read More]
Oops, I Kidnapped a Pharaoh!
Kpop Demon Hunters fans will love this hilarious time-travel adventure starring famous historical figures as you’ve never seen them before. Join schoolgirl Skylar as she dances with Ancient Egypt’s King Tutankhamun, fangirls with Marie Curie & gives William Shakespeare a K-Beauty glow up. When Skylar and best friend Dana accept a ride in Nana’s new tuktuk, they … [Read More]
Skylar and the K-pop Headteacher
Fans of Kpop Demon Hunters will love this hilarious body swap school adventure for 8+ readers from Costa-winning author Luan Goldie. A joyful and uplifting tale of friendship, fandom and chasing your dreams, perfect for fans of Jenny Pearson, David Solomons and all things K-pop. When K-pop obsessed Skylar switches bodies with her super-old headteacher, she’s … [Read More]
From Koreanness to K-ness: Contemporary Korean Culture and Society
From Koreanness to K-ness: Contemporary Korean Culture and Society aims to conceptualise ‘K-ness’ as a new way of understanding the underlying characteristics that shape the semiotic, cultural, and sociological representations of contemporary Korean culture and society. The global popularity of Korean cultural content has sparked extensive interest in various facets of the Korean language, culture, and … [Read More]
Korean Nuclear Diaspora: Redress Movements of Korean Atomic-bomb Victims in Japan
Korean Nuclear Diaspora: Redress Movements of Korean Atomic-bomb Victims in Japan comprehensively explores the history of Korean victims of the 1945 atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Following the bombings and Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, these Korean atomic-bomb victims dispersed across Japan, South Korea, and North Korea, and have often been left without any … [Read More]
Emotions, Affects, and Narrative in Korean History and Culture
This collection of eleven essays explores emotions and affect in Korean culture across a broad temporal span, from the Koryŏ dynasty (918–1392) to the present. Drawing on a diverse array of sources — including memoirs, diplomatic letters, newspapers, films, video diaries, photographs, and ethnographic interviews — the volume examines how emotions intervene in public discourse … [Read More]
Profits of Queerness: Media, Medicine, and Citizenship in Authoritarian South Korea, 1950–1980 [forthcoming]
This groundbreaking, interdisciplinary study reassesses South Korea’s tumultuous period of authoritarian development (1950–1980) through obfuscated but illuminating histories of “queerness,” defined as gender variance, same-sex sexuality, and atypical anatomies, among other nonnormative expressions. Rather than primarily view these topics through minoritarian and/or liberal lenses, Todd Henry adopts a universalizing approach to examine how social conformity … [Read More]
Not Everything Unfolds as Anticipated: Selections from Yi Kyubo’s Tongguk Yi Sangguk chip
Yi Kyubo (1168–1241) was the foremost writer and poet of the Koryŏ dynasty (918–1392). Not Everything Unfolds as Anticipated is a miscellany of work from his Tongguk Yi Sangguk chip, a collection containing more than two thousand texts and considered the earliest substantial oeuvre of a Koryŏ writer to date. The present work comprises translations … [Read More]
The Forest Called You
In a future Korea, the world has been ravaged by dust clouds and the deadly Akanta virus. Rather than live in their nightmarish present, people slip on virtual reality headsets to indulge in nostalgic simulations of the past. 18-year-old Soop – stigmatised due to her brush with Akanta, which causes VR-rejection – is bullied at … [Read More]
Holy Boy
One idol. Four fans. Worship’s never been bloodier. Yosep is a K-pop idol with millions of adoring fans. But for four of them, a poster on the wall just won’t cut it. They have a plan—a perfect, foolproof plan—to get their idol all to themselves. Kidnapping Yosep seemed like the ultimate act of love. But … [Read More]
Hello Baby [forthcoming]
A cult feminist hit in South Korea, Hello Baby is a gripping and intimate portrait of motherhood, fertility and womanhood for fans of Butter and Breasts and Eggs. Outside the chat, they had different jobs, personalities, financial backgrounds, but inside, they were all mothers-to-be anxiously awaiting their babies. In a group chat called ‘Hello Baby’, … [Read More]
1966 And All That: The Story of North Korea’s Greatest Football Team
1966 And All That: The Story of North Korea’s Greatest Football Team is a captivating and meticulously researched exploration of one of football’s most unexpected and legendary World Cup stories. In this unique work, Kenneth Knight brings to life the incredible rise of the North Korean team that stunned the world in 1966, not merely … [Read More]