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]
Booklist: Fiction in English
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]
Oxford Soju Club
The natural enemy of a Korean is another Korean. When North Korean spymaster Doha Kim is mysteriously killed in Oxford, his protégé, Yohan Kim, chases the only breadcrumb given to him in Doha’s last breath: “Soju Club, Dr. Ryu.” In the meantime, a Korean American CIA agent , Yunah Choi, races to salvage her investigation … [Read More]
Flashlight
The astonishing story of one family swept up in the tides of the twentieth century, ranging from post-war Japan to suburban America and the North Korean regime One evening, ten-year-old Louisa and her father take a walk out on the breakwater. They are spending the summer in a coastal Japanese town while her father Serk, … [Read More]
Clay Walls
Clay Walls tells the story of Haesu and Chun, immigrants who fled Japanese-occupied Korea for Los Angeles in the decade prior to World War II, and their American-born children. First published in 1986, it offers a portrait of what being Korean in the USA meant in the first half of the twentieth century, exploring themes of … [Read More]
Luminous
In a recently reunified Korea, robots have integrated seamlessly into society. They are our teachers, our bus drivers and policemen. They are our lovers. They are even our children. Eleven-year-old Ruijie sifts through scrap metal in a Seoul junkyard, searching for anything that might repair her failing body. There amongst the piles of junk she … [Read More]
Green Frog
Here are fifteen pitch-perfect stories about women trying to make their own way: featuring daughters, divorcees, fox demons, a praying mantis, and . . . green frogs. A young girl reconnects with her Korean grandmother; an artist considers her connection to the Korean folktale of the green frog; a praying mantis living in a beautiful … [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]
City of Night Birds
‘A novel that will be read and loved for the next one hundred years, and essential reading for right now. I could not have loved it more.’ Coco Mellors, author of Blue Sisters ‘This story left me thinking about the ways we overcome setbacks and redefine what truly matters.’ Reese Witherspoon A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK … [Read More]
Tiger Season
An American soldier’s life spirals out of control after he makes a fateful discovery on the Korean DMZ and then falls in love with a beautiful brothel courtesan whose tragic past becomes entwined in a volatile confrontation with Communist North Korea. It’s the 1960s, the Vietnam conflict is raging, and a delicate Korean armistice threatens … [Read More]
Toward Eternity
Negotiating the terrain of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun and Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility, a brilliant, haunting speculative novel from a #1 New York Times bestselling translator that sets out to answer the question: What does it mean to be human in a world where technology is quickly catching up to biology? In a near-future world, … [Read More]
The Melancholy of Untold History
A beautifully crafted, enriching saga inspired by East Asian mythology, The Melancholy of Untold History is Minsoo Kang’s debut novel, steeped in history like R.F. Kuang’s Babel, epic in scope like Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land, and lyrically exciting like David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, interweaving four complex yet entertaining stories as they shape and create a nation’s literary narrative through … [Read More]
The Eyes Are The Best Part
My Sister, the Serial Killer meets Boy Parts, this literary feminist howl-of-a-debut is going to crawl right under your skin… Ji-won’s life is in disarray. Her father’s affair has ripped her family to shreds, leaving her to piece their crappy lives back together. So, when her mother’s obnoxious new white boyfriend enters the scene, bragging … [Read More]
A Crane Among Wolves
A devastating and pulse-pounding tale that will feel all-too-relevant in today’s world, based on a true story from Korean history. Hope is dangerous. Love is deadly. 1506, Joseon. The people suffer under the cruel reign of the tyrant King Yeonsan, powerless to stop him from commandeering their land for his recreational use, banning and burning … [Read More]
The Stone Home
A hauntingly poetic family drama and coming-of-age story that reveals a dark corner of South Korean history through the eyes of a small community living in a reformatory center—a stunning work of great emotional power from the critically acclaimed author of If You Leave Me. In 2011, Eunju Oh opens her door to greet a stranger: … [Read More]
The Invisible Hotel
Yewon is trapped. She’s stuck in Dalbit, the small Korean village of her birth, where the ancestral bones of her relatives live in her bathtub. Reeling from the loss of her father, she works long days at the convenience store and tries to keep the peace between her mother and sister, who are constantly at … [Read More]