With shades of Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice and Choi Jin-young’s Hunger, Employee No. 9 runs a psychological gauntlet of money, power, personal responsibility, and the daily struggle for survival. No. 9 is in trouble. His son’s college tuition is coming due, his wife needs surgery after taking double shifts at a grocery store, the … [Read More]
Booklist: Korean literature in translation (page 2)
Bonobo [forthcoming]
Jin-yi devotes her life to the study of primates. One evening, she helps rescue a bonobo who has escaped from a burning villa. While holding her on her lap in the car taking them back to the Primate Study Center, an accident throws her through the windshield and a strange fusion takes place: while her … [Read More]
Mothersucker [forthcoming]
A chilling international debut following a grieving mother’s transformation into a vampire who targets men who have harmed women—in the present, past, and future—and the female-led task force entrusted with the murder investigation On top of a mountain in Korea, buried underneath a mound of soil, 51-year-old Geum-hong wakes up transformed. Her senses are vivid, … [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]
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]
Plant Lady [forthcoming]
A chilling psychological horror tale of a green-fingered serial killer. Will you dare to disrespect her plants? Moving on from a traumatic experience, Yoohee has opened up her own Plant Shop to start afresh. Rows of plants, meticulously arranged like soldiers, thrive under her green fingers; sunlight filters through the windows at just the right … [Read More]
The Seoul Letter Shop [forthcoming]
A touching testament to the power of letter writing and connecting with strangers, for fans of Days at the Morisaki Bookshop and What You’re Looking For is in the Library. Hyoyoung feels trapped in her small hometown after her dreams of becoming a film maker are dashed. When a friend asks if she can take … [Read More]
The Heart of the Nhaga (The Bird that Drinks Tears vol 1) [forthcoming]
Discover the bestselling epic fantasy series from the grandmaster of Korean SFF, available for the first time in English by award-winning translator Anton Hur. A can’t-miss for readers of the great classics and giants of fantasy, from J.R.R Tolkien to Ursula K. Le Guin Three handles one. The world is divided by the Line of … [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]
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]
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 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]
Shift
Detective Yi Chang needs another miracle. Ten years ago his sister was healed of her deadly cancer by a mysterious cult leader, but now his young niece has inherited the same disease. The only lead Yi Chang has is the body of a murder victim found in an abandoned building in the Korean seaside. The … [Read More]
Teddy Bears Never Die
A young girl teams up with a hatchet-wielding teddy bear to solve the mystery of her mother’s murder and get her revenge in this campy slasher from Cho Yeeun, a rising star in Korean horror. Hwa-young never believed that her mother was murdered in a mass-cyanide attack at the luxury apartment complex where she worked. … [Read More]
Narrow Rooms
A romantic thriller exploring the dark corners of human desire and isolation with quiet eeriness Is a fresh start truly possible? Or will society’s strictures and your own impulses keep re-creating the same messed-up relationships in every narrow room you enter? Choi Seongmin’s Narrow Rooms follows a young woman who leaves her rural hometown to study in … [Read More]
If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light
From Korean science fiction author Kim Cho-yeop, a stunning and poignant collection of literary speculative fiction stories that explore the complexities of identity, love, death, and the search for life’s meaning, perfect for fans of Exhalation and The Paper Menagerie. In If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light, Korean science fiction superstar Kim … [Read More]