Korean Literature

In the aftermath of World War II, Goh Junja is a girl just coming into her own. She is the latest successful deep-sea diver in her family. She urges her mother to allow her to make their annual trip to Mt. Halla, where they trade sea delicacies for pork. A sea-village girl, Junja has never been to the mountains, where it smells like mushrooms and earth, and it is there she falls in love with mountain-boy Yang Suwol. But when Junja returns one day later, it is just in time to see her mother take her last breath, beaten by the waves during a dive she was taking in Junja's place.

Life near the North Korean border is a zero-sum game, an ongoing battle in which you either win or you lose. This dangerous, shadowed netherworld is home to an unforgettable woman known only as the “trickster.” Inspired by the story of Lee’s great aunt, one of the oldest women to escape alone from North Korea, 8 Lives of a Century Old Trickster consists of eight dark and spellbinding chapters that follow this remarkable character and her family as they struggle to survive during the most turbulent times of modern Korean history.

Phoebe Lin and Will Kendall meet in their first month at prestigious Edwards University. Phoebe is a glamorous girl who doesn't tell anyone she blames herself for her mother's recent death. Will is a misfit scholarship boy who transfers to Edwards from Bible college, waiting tables to get by. What he knows for sure is that he loves Phoebe. Grieving and guilt-ridden, Phoebe is drawn into a secretive cult founded by a charismatic former student with an enigmatic past.

로맨스 소설의 고전이자, 19세기 초 영국에서 유행한 고딕 소설로도 평가 받는, 여성 작가 샬럿 브론테의 대표작. 책은 가난한 고아 가정교사 제인 에어와 부유하지만 불행한 에드워드 로체스터의 사랑 이야기가 작품의 중심축을 이루고 이들의 사랑을 방해하는 장애물이 주된 갈등으로 작용한다. 작가는 자매들과 함께 다녔던 기숙 학교의 기억과, 비련으로 끝나고 만 사랑의 경험을 작품 속에 녹여낸다.

Can't I Go Instead follows the lives of the daughter of a Korean nobleman and her maidservant in the early 20th century. When the daughter’s suitor is arrested as a Korean Independence activist, and she is implicated during the investigation, she is quickly forced into marriage to one of her father’s Japanese employees and shipped off to the United States. At the same time, her maidservant is sent in her mistress's place to be a comfort woman to the Japanese Imperial army.

Manila, Philippines, 2003. Dane Chandler is visiting Manila on a writing assignment. Jack Pierce is a tough-talking Korean War veteran. When Jack asks Dane to join him for cards at the pension's cafe, Dane instinctively agrees, sensing the man's "command" presence. What unfolds will change their lives forever. Tokyo, Japan, 1949. Jack Pierce joined the army for honor and adventure, finding himself garrisoned at Camp Drake, Tokyo. On a raucous night at Ginza's glitzy Club Florida, the young corporal meets the love of his life, Michiko Okura.

1999: At the end of the millennium, the Kim family is struggling to move on after their mother, Sunny, vanished a year ago. Sixty-one-year-old John Kim feels more isolated from his grown children than ever before. One evening, their fragile lives are further upended when John finds the body of an unhoused stranger in the backyard with a letter to Sunny, leaving the family with more questions than ever. 1977: Newly married, Sunny is pregnant and has just moved to Los Angeles from Korea with her hardworking and often-absent husband.

In this Korean folktale, a greedy merchant sells the shade from his tree to a passing traveler. What he doesn’t realize, however, is just how clever this traveler is! What happens when the merchant’s ploy backfires and the traveler decides to stay in the shade?

Twelve-year-old Jordan feels like he can't live up to the example his older sister set or his parent's expectations. When he returns home from school one day hoping to hide his suspension, Los Angeles has reached a turning point. In the wake of the acquittal of the police officers filmed beating Rodney King, as well as the shooting of a young Black teen, Latasha Harlins, by a Korean store owner, the country is at the precipice of confronting its racist past and present.

A greedy tiger roamed the forest looking for food. One day he came upon a rabbit. But the rabbit conitnued to outsmart the tiger and not get eaten. "Rabbits are dangerous," thought the tiger. "I must warn everyone about them."

When the Seoul police inform Min that his girlfriend Yu-jin has committed suicide, he’s sure it can't be true. She was successful, ambitious, happy, just on the cusp of graduating from university and claiming the future she’d always dreamed of.

On the outside, Yumi Chung suffers from #shygirlproblems, a perm-gone-wrong, and kids calling her "Yu-MEAT" because she smells like her family's Korean barbecue restaurant. On the inside, Yumi is ready for her Netflix stand-up special. Her notebook is filled with mortifying memories that she's reworked into comedy gold. All she needs is a stage and courage.

Henry Park has spent his entire life trying to become a true American—a native speaker. But even as the essence of his adopted country continues to elude him, his Korean heritage seems to drift further and further away. Park's harsh Korean upbringing has taught him to hide his emotions, to remember everything he learns, and most of all to feel an overwhelming sense of alienation. In other words, it has shaped him as a natural spy.

Jin and Suja meet and fall in love while studying at university in Pyongyang. She is a young journalist from a prominent family, while he is from a small village of little means. Outside the school, North Korea has fallen under great political upheaval, plunged into chaos and famine. When Jin returns home to find his family starving, their food rations all but gone, he makes a rash decision that will haunt him for the rest of his life.

Katrina Kim may be broke, the black sheep of her family, and slightly unhinged, but she isn’t a stalker. Her obsession with her co-worker, Kurt, is just one of many coping mechanisms—like her constant shape and number rituals, or the way scenes from her favorite children’s book bleed into her vision whenever she feels anxious. But when Katrina finds a cryptic message from Kurt implying he’s aware of her surveillance, her tenuous hold on a normal life crumbles. Driven by compulsion, she makes a midnight visit to the Cayatoga Bridge—just in time to witness Kurt’s suicide.

낡은 단독주택의 하숙 일을 도우며 사는 대학생 '서주'는 어느 날 집주인 할머니가 지옥에 월세를 줬음을 알게 된다. 지옥 리모델링 기간 갈 데가 없는 죄수 일부를 이 집에서 지내게 했다는 것. 집 곳곳에서 비명이 들리고 불꽃이 타오르며 방문이 열릴 때마다 보이는 지옥의 모습은 익숙해지지 않는다. 그나마 얼마 남지 않은 멀쩡한 세입자들은 방을 빼는 가운데 서주는 지옥의 관리자라 자칭하는 악마를 마주치게 된다.

After crashing their spacecraft in the middle of nowhere, a shapeshifting alien finds themself stranded on an unfamiliar planet and disabled by Earth’s gravity. To survive, they will need to practice walking. And what better way than to hunt for food? As they discover, humans are delicious. Intelligent, clever, and adaptable, the alien shifts their gender, appearance, and conduct to suit a prey’s sexual preference, then attacks at the pivotal moment of their encounter.

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 the themes of love and grief.

Elsa Park is a particle physicist at the top of her game, stationed at a neutrino observatory in the Antarctic, confident she's put enough distance between her ambitions and the family ghosts she's run from all her life. But it isn't long before her childhood imaginary friend—an achingly familiar, spectral woman in the snow—comes to claim her at last. Years ago, Elsa's now-catatonic mother had warned her that the women of their line were doomed to repeat the narrative lives of their ancestors from Korean myth and legend. But beyond these ghosts, Elsa also faces a more earthly fate.

양 갈래로 땋은 빨강 머리에 주근깨 많고 창백한 피부를 가진 앤. 지난 100년 동안 이토록 사랑받은 주인공이 또 있을까? 역사상 가장 사랑받은 소녀 이야기 『빨강 머리 앤』이 아름다운 모습으로 우리를 찾아왔다. 평화로운 에이번리 마을 커스버트네 집에 농사를 도울 남자아이가 온다는 소문이 돈다. 하지만 마차에서 내린 사람은 빼빼 마르고 머리가 빨간 여자아이. 실수로 입양된 고아 앤 셜리는 숫기 없는 매슈, 엄격한 마릴라 남매와 새로운 삶을 시작한다. 과연 이들에게 무슨 일이 일어날까? 첫 페이지부터 책을 덮을 때까지 손에서 놓을 수 없는 이야기의 힘은 바로 '앤'이라는 인물이 지닌 강력한 힘에서 온다.