Winner of 2018 Hankyoreh Literature Award, this work is a fictional account of real-life labour activist, Kang Juryoung, who led a strike at the Pyongwon rubber factory in 1930s Pyongyang to protest working conditions. Reminiscent of Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace and Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, this hard-hitting historical fiction reimagines the unwritten story of a female … [Read More]
Booklist: Literature Fiction and Poetry (page 2)
Oxford Soju Club [forthcoming]
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]
The Midnight Shift [forthcoming]
A bestseller in Korea, a biting, fast-paced vampire murder mystery exploring queer love and the consequences of loneliness. When four isolated elderly people die back-to-back at the same hospital by jumping out of the sixth-floor window, Su-Yeon doesn’t understand why she’s the only one at her precinct that seems to care. But her colleagues at … [Read More]
Roadkill [forthcoming]
An effervescent speculative short story collection by South Korean author Amil for the next generation who crave a fresh perspective. With strong roots in feminist science fiction and fantasy, Roadkill is for the next generation of readers of speculative fiction who love to be transported to different worlds but also crave a fresh perspective. Featuring … [Read More]
A Twist of Fate [forthcoming]
Two women meet on a train. Each is running from a deadly secret. When one disappears, the other decides to take her place—for better, or for worse. Jae-Young has just left everything she’s ever known, not that it was much: her thankless job, her infested apartment, and her abusive boyfriend—who happens to be dead on … [Read More]
Chinatown [forthcoming]
In this emblematic selection of her stories, Oh Jung-hee probes beneath the surface of seemingly quotidian lives to expose nightmarish family configurations warped by desertion, psychosis, and death. In ‘Chinatown’ a young girl living on the edge of the city’s Chinese community comes of age among mundane violences, collisions with adult sexuality and the American … [Read More]
Blowfish [forthcoming]
For readers of Han Kang and Sheila Heti, an atmospheric, melancholic novel about a successful sculptor who decides to commit suicide by artfully preparing and deliberately eating a lethal dish of blowfish. Blowfish is a postmodern novel in four parts, alternating between the respective stories of a female sculptor and a male architect. Death is … [Read More]
Hunger [forthcoming]
A woman sees her man murdered on the street – and time stands still. Until she cradles his corpse to her chest and carries it home, where she disinfects every inch of skin before seating herself to begin. What happens next reverberates from this realm into the next, where the man is witnessing his own … [Read More]
The Second Chance Convenience Store [forthcoming]
In this million-copy international bestseller from Korea, the owner of a corner store takes in an unhoused man who does a good deed, a kind soul whose presence will transform the whole neighborhood—a heartwarming tale of community and redemption reminiscent of the bestselling novels of Matt Haig and Gabrielle Zevin. Dok-go lives in Seoul Station. … [Read More]
Broccoli Punch [forthcoming]
A collection of short stories flirting with the surreal and Kafkaesque: a father whose ashes turn into a chatting plant, a boyfriend whose hand becomes a broccoli, a group of investigative aliens fascinated by idol culture. Yuri’s world is permeated with humour, emotions, and style, giving us a refreshing perspective into the complexities of human … [Read More]
Failed Summer Vacation [forthcoming]
“This summer vacation is not a complete failure quite yet – there’s still a lot left we can ruin.” The debut collection of genre-defying short stories from the Korean Literature and Society’s New Writer Award. Seven diversely wild and gripping stories – dreamy, dark, lyrical and wry – that expose the oddness of how we … [Read More]
Red Sword
Red Sword is the mesmerizing and haunting English-language debut novel by International Booker Prize-shortlisted author Bora Chung. Expertly translated by Anton Hur, this speculative fiction unfolds on a distant, war-ravaged planet where advanced technologies wreak havoc and devastation. Told in sparse, evocative prose, a slave-turned-reluctant hero must traverse the alien terrain to uncover the truth … [Read More]
A Time When I So Loved Someone
A large body of the poems in Lee Byung Ryul’s book is comprised of accounts of his own tangible life story, or his observation of other’s experience. He writes about things of deep concern to him–the love relationship between him and his beloved, trips abroad, friendship and enmity, a natural object like a persimmon, or … [Read More]
Snowglobe 2
The groundbreaking Korean phenomenon that Entertainment Weekly called “The Hunger Games meets Squid Game” continues with even more dark secrets and shocking surprises. The temperature is rising and the truth at the center of Chobahm’s frozen world will be revealed in the final installment of this epic dystopian saga. Chobahm’s perfect life in Snowglobe came … [Read More]
Like a Fruit Tearing Its Way Out of a Flower
Like A Fruit Tearing Its Way Out of a Flower by Jang Okgwan is a collection of poems selected by the poet from his almost 40-year, award winning career. With the lightness and wit of a comedian, Jang’s meditations on aging brilliantly capture the conflict between the unflinching power of the human mind against the unavoidable … [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]