Korean Literature

It's been a year since Penny first walked through the doors of the Dallergut Dream Department Store, and surviving a year at the store means one thing… She is now an official employee of the dream industry! She can finally take the express commuter train to the Company District, where all the dream-production companies are located, and discover how all raw dream materials and testing equipment are produced. But the Company District is not quite what she expected. Instead it hides a secret underbelly of the magical industry that Penny thought she was a part of.

Kim Ronyoung (Gloria Hahn, 1926-1987) 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, Clay Walls offers a portrait of what being Korean in California meant in the first half of the twentieth century and how these immigrants’ nationalist spirit helped them withstand racism and poverty.

In her signature sharp prose, brilliantly translated by Jamie Chang, Nam-Joo returns with this haunting account of a neglected housing complex in the shadows of Town: a former fishing village bought out by a massive conglomerate. Town is prosperous and safe―but only if you’re a citizen with “valuable skills and assets,” which the residents of Saha Estates are not. Disenfranchised and tightlipped, the Saha are forced into harsh labor, squatting in moldy units without electricity.

Winter Park and Bobby Bae are Korean American high school juniors whose families have been friends since the kids were making crayon art. They, however, are repulsed by each other. Winter is MIT-bound, comfortable keeping people at arm’s length. Bobby is as Type-A, anxious, and risk-averse as you can get. He’s also been recently dumped. That’s why, when Winter’s and Bobby’s parents insist that they go on a northeast college campus tour together, both teens find reasons to accept even though the idea of being stuck in a car together for 700 miles sounds unbearable.

Riley Jo is a teenager who knows what she wants. Born and raised in Bentonville, Arkansas, this Korean American girl has her sights set on being a musician. So when her parents are surprisingly cool about her attending the prestigious Los Angeles-based arts-focused boarding school her senior year of high school, she jumps at the chance. This is her moment to make her indie rock dreams a reality!

Amelia Bae-Wood’s life is falling apart. Unemployed, newly single and completely broke—for reasons she hasn’t told anyone yet—she finds herself hitchhiking across California to deal with the fallout of her mother’s eviction from the family estate. Amelia needs somewhere to live and time to figure out what to do with the rest of her life, so moving with her mother and sister to Arcadia, the cancer retreat center where her sister volunteers, seems like as good an idea as any.

Moving beyond the quasi-fraternal bond of the unforgettable George and Lenny from Of Mice and Men, Hurt You explores the actual sibling bond of Georgia and Leonardo da Vinci Daewoo Kim, who has an unnamed neurological disability that resembles autism. The themes of race, disability, and class spin themselves out in a suburban high school where the Kim family has moved in order to access better services for Leonardo.

From Sophie Kim comes the second book in the epic fantasy based on Korean mythology, an unflinching roller coaster ride of action, romance, and intricate fantasy lore.

곽재식은 누구보다도 재미난 이야기 소재들을 사랑하는 작가입니다. 비단 SF뿐만 아니라 동서양의 판타지와 전설 등, 현실 밖의 꿈과 상상과 환상 속에 담긴 이야기들을 찾고 수집하죠. 다루는 소재를 고려하면, 곽재식은 확실히 '장르 소설가'에 속합니다. 전형적이라고 할 수도 있겠죠.

Twelve-year-old Lia Park and her best friend, Joon, are now full-time students at International Magic Academy after defeating corrupt diviner Gaya, and their first assignment is an ambitious one. The evil nine-headed monster and King of Darkness, Jihaedaegukjeok, wants to destroy the three Heavenly Heirlooms that create fire and light to plunge the world into darkness and destroy humanity. The heirlooms can only be destroyed if they are all together, so over time, they have been hidden carefully with magic.

Some R&R in Paris is just what the doctor ordered for Rachel Prescott, until she starts to attract unwanted attention. Casey Reddick is visiting a friend and witnesses a devastating attack that almost claims his life.

A young biracial girl joyfully celebrates both her Black and Korean cultures the best way she knows how—with the irresistible power of food!

Angelina Lee feels like she doesn’t belong. Newly divorced, and completely unmoored by the sudden and tragic death of her mother, she hopes studying Korean will reconnect her to her roots, but nothing about Seoul feels familiar. Further complicating matters is the resurgence of an alluring man from Angelina’s past, and fellow classmate Keisuke Ono, an irritatingly good looking Japanese American journalist who refuses to leave her alone. What she’ll barely admit, however, is the true reason behind her trip. She’s convinced the key to understanding her mother’s suicide lies in Korea.

In 1948, Najin and Calvin Cho, with their young daughter Miran, travel from South Korea to the United States in search of new opportunities. Wary of the challenges they know will face them, Najin and Calvin make the difficult decision to leave their other daughter, Inja, behind with their extended family; soon, they hope, they will return to her. But then war breaks out in Korea, and there is no end in sight to the separation. Miran grows up in prosperous American suburbia as Inja grapples in her war-torn land with ties to a family she doesn't remember.

Helena Rho was six years old when her family left Seoul, Korea, for America and its opportunities. Years later, her Korean-ness behind her, Helena had everything a model minority was supposed to want: she was married to a white American doctor and had a beautiful home, two children, and a career as an assistant professor of pediatrics. For decades she fulfilled the expectations of others. All the while Helena kept silent about the traumas - both professional and personal - that left her anxious yet determined to escape.

In a reunified Korea of the future, robots have been integrated into society as surrogates, servants, children, and even lovers. Though boundaries between bionic and organic frequently blur, these robots are decidedly second-class citizens. Jun and Morgan, two siblings estranged for many years, are haunted by the memory of their lost brother, Yoyo, who was warm, sensitive, and very nearly human. Jun, a war veteran turned detective of the lowly Robot Crimes Unit in Seoul, becomes consumed by an investigation that reconnects him with his sister Morgan, now a prominent robot designer.

Much like Lee Chang-dong’s internationally renowned films (Burning, Secret Sunshine, and Poetry), these brilliant, unsettling tales, originally published in Korea in the 1980s and now translated into English for the first time, investigate themes of injustice, betrayal, and terror—on both an intimate and national scale. Lee writes deeply and hauntingly about conflicts between family, the powerful and the vulnerable, conformists and rebels.

Jae-young has just left everything she’s ever known, not that it was much. Her thankless job, her infested apartment, her abusive boyfriend—who happens to be dead on the kitchen floor. Murder was never the way she envisioned leaving, but it was desperate times. Now, escaping her transgressions on a train to the bustling city of Seoul, Jae-young is just hoping to become invisible—safe. On the train she meets a chatty mother with her infant son who seem to be running from a similarly harsh life with her unfaithful husband, hoping to find refuge with the in-laws she’s never met.

Jihye is an ordinary woman who has never been extraordinary. In her administrative job at the Academy, she silently tolerates office politics and the absurdities of Korean bureaucracy. Forever only one misplaced email away from career catastrophe, she effectively becomes a master of the silent eye-roll and the tactical coffee run. But all her efforts to endure her superiors and the semi-hostile work environment they create are upended when a new intern, Gyuok Lee, arrives.

Jonas Stuyvesant's silver-spoon upbringing has not prepared him for the horrors of war. When Communist North Korea launches a surprise invasion of the South, Jonas finds himself leading his platoon against a well-trained, battle-hardened army. Soviet-made tanks break through the American lines. These are not the pitchfork-wielding peasants he expected. What should have been an easy victory turns into a devastating rout. Jonas and his men begin their retreat down the Peninsula, fighting a rear-guard action.