Korean Authors

Yeongju is burned out. With her high-­flying career, demanding marriage, and busy life in Seoul, she knows she should feel successful, but all she feels is drained. Yet an abandoned dream nags at her, and in a leap of faith, she leaves her old life behind. Quitting her job and divorcing her husband, Yeongju moves to a small residential neighborhood outside the city, where she opens the Hyunam-dong Bookshop.

Baek Sehee is a successful young social media director at a publishing house when she begins seeing a psychiatrist about her—what to call it?—depression? She feels persistently low, anxious, endlessly self-doubting, but also highly judgemental of others. She hides her feelings well at work and with friends, performing the calmness her lifestyle demands. The effort is exhausting, overwhelming and keeps her from forming deep relationships. This can't be normal. But if she's so hopeless, why can she always summon a yen for her favourite street food: the spicy rice cake, tteokbokki?

THE STORY THEY COULDN'T HACK: In this international bestseller, a high-ranking counterintelligence agent describes his life as a former poet laureate to Kim Jong-il and his breathtaking escape to freedom. As North Korea’s State Poet Laureate, Jang Jin-sung led a charmed life. With food...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE An all-encompassing, whirlwind romance that’s “beautifully crafted” (People) and “full of intelligence, understanding and hope” (Los Angeles Times) ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The...

ONE OF THE ATLANTIC’S GREAT AMERICAN NOVELS OF THE PAST 100 YEARS The debut novel from critically acclaimed and New York Times–bestselling author of On Such a Full Sea and My Year Abroad. In Native Speaker, author Chang-rae Lee introduces readers to Henry Park. Park has spent his entire life...

Ruthless. Meticulous. Arrogant. Dante Russo thrives on control, both personally and professionally. The billionaire CEO never planned to marry—until the threat of blackmail forces him into an engagement with a woman he barely knows.

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.

In a small, tidy apartment on the outskirts of the frenzied metropolis of Seoul lives Kim Jiyoung. A 30-something-year-old “millennial everywoman”, she has recently left her white-collar desk job - in order to care for her newborn daughter full-time - as so many Korean women are expected to do. But she quickly begins to exhibit strange symptoms that alarm her husband, parents, and in-laws: Jiyoung impersonates the voices of other women - alive and even dead, both known and unknown to her.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Pachinko, a "mesmerizing" novel about the Korean-American daughter of first-generation immigrants striving to join Manhattan's inner circle (USA Today). Casey Han is a strong-willed, Queens-bred daughter of Korean immigrants immersed in a glamorous...

A million-plus-copy best seller in Korea—a magnificent English-language debut poised to become an international sensation—this is the stunning, deeply moving story of a family’s search for their mother, who goes missing one afternoon amid the crowds of the Seoul Station subway. Told...

This story is, in short, about a monster meeting another monster. One of the monsters is me. Yunjae was born with a brain condition called Alexithymia that makes it hard for him to feel emotions like fear or anger. He does not have friends—the two almond-shaped neurons located deep in his...

From the indie rockstar of Japanese Breakfast fame, and author of the viral 2018 New Yorker essay that shares the title of this book, an unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity. In this exquisite story of family, food, grief...

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.

A Girl from Busan is an epic generational tale of resilience, where unwavering faith and the unbreakable bond of a mother’s love transcend devastating personal trials in a foreign culture. Amidst the tumult of the Korean War, young Okhui wandered the streets of Busan, seeking solace in the flickering shadows of the Munhwa theater. There, surrounded by the glamourous billboards of Hollywood cinema, she dreamt of gliding across the silver screen like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. Holding these dreams close to her heart, she ventured to America as a young bride, bearing the burden of a ...

""A spectacular debut filled with great characters and heart.” —Lisa See, author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan FINALIST FOR THE 2022 DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE · FINALIST FOR THE BALCONES FICTION PRIZE · LONGLISTED FOR THE HWA DEBUT CROWN AWARD An epic story of love, war, and...

North Korea's deadliest weapon is sleeper agent Song Sun Young. Married with children and living the good life in New York City, she has waited seven years to activate the mission she was trained to do: infiltrate America's financial infrastructure. She prays the call from her handlers will never come, because she loves her husband and kids and affluent New York lifestyle. But the call does come. During volatile negotiations between the White House and Pyongyang, Song is hurled back into a reality she had hoped to leave behind forever.

A powerful, character-driven narrative of the Korean War from the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who helped uncover some of its longest-held and darkest secrets. The war that broke out in Korea on a Sunday morning seventy years ago has come to be recognized as a critical turning point in modern...

You can never know what goes on behind closed doors. One of The Millions' Most Anticipated Books of the Year (Selected by Edan Lepucki) Kyung Cho is a young father burdened by a house he can’t afford. For years, he and his wife, Gillian, have lived beyond their means. Now their debts and bad...

In her latest groundbreaking book, The Let Them Theory, Mel Robbins—New York Times bestselling author and one of the world's most respected experts on motivation, confidence, and mindset—teaches you how to stop wasting energy on what you can't control and start focusing on what truly matters: YOU. Your happiness. Your goals. Your life.

The Consultant is very good at his job. He creates simple, elegant, effective solutions for…restructuring. Nothing obvious or messy. Certainly nothing anyone would ever suspect as murder. The ‘natural deaths’ he plans have always gone well: a medicine replaced here, a mechanism jammed there. His performance reviews are excellent. And it’s not as though he knows these people. Until his next ‘customer’ turns out to be someone he not only knows but cares about, and for the first time, he begins to question the role he plays in the vast, anonymous Company.