Korean Literature in Translation

Books written in Korean and translated into English. Find a new-to-you read and expand your understanding of another culture.
Updated September 19, 2022
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The vegetarian : a novel
Han, Kang
Paper Book
FROM HAN KANG, WINNER OF THE 2024 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE   "[Han Kang's] intense poetic prose . . . exposes the fragility of human life."--The Nobel Committee for Literature, in the citation for the Nobel Prize   A NEW YORK TIMES...
The cabinet
Kim, Ŏn-su
Paper Book
Winner of the Munhakdongne Novel Award, South Korea's most prestigious literary prize. Cabinet 13 looks exactly like any normal filing cabinet...Except this cabinet is filled with files on the 'symptomers', humans whose strange abilities and bizarre experiences might just mark...
The court dancer
Sin, Kyæong-suk
Paper Book
Set during the dramatic final years of the Korean Empire, the new novel from Man Asian Literary Prize winner Kyung-Sook Shin features a mysterious dancer caught up in the dizzying sweep of history.  Based on a remarkable true story, New York Times bestselling author Shin...
The disaster tourist : a novel
Yun, Ko-æun
Paper Book
This stunning "dystopian feminist eco-thriller" from an award-winning South Korean author "takes on climate change, sexual assault, greed, and dark tourism" (Ms. Magazine). Welcome to the desert island of Mui, where a paid vacation to paradise is nothing short of a...
Grass
Gendry-Kim, Keum Suk
Paper Book
Appeared on best of the year lists from The New York Times, The Guardian, and more! Winner of The Cartoonist Studio Prize for Best Print Comic of the Year! Grass is a powerful antiwar graphic novel, telling the life story of a Korean girl named Okseon Lee...
Human acts : a novel
Han, Kang
Paper Book
From the internationally bestselling author of The Vegetarian, a "rare and astonishing" (The Observer) portrait of political unrest and the universal struggle for justice. In the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is...
I'll be right there : a novel
Sin, Kyæong-suk
Paper Book
Set in 1980s South Korea amid the tremors of political revolution, I'll Be Right There follows Jung Yoon, a highly literate, 20-something-year-old woman, as she recounts her tragic personal history as well as those of her three intimate college friends. When Yoon receives a distressing phone call...
I'm waiting for you : and other stories
Kim, Bo Young
Paper Book
"Her fiction is a breath-taking piece of a cinematic art itself. Reminiscent of the world we experienced in Matrix, Inception, and Dark City, still it leads us to this entirely original structure, which is a ground-breaking, mystic literary and cinematic experience. Indeed, powerful and graceful....
Kim Jiyoung, born 1982
Cho, Nam-ju
Paper Book
Truly, flawlessly, completely, she became that person. In a small, tidy apartment on the outskirts of the frenzied metropolis of Seoul lives Kim Jiyoung. A thirtysomething-year-old "millennial everywoman," she has recently left her white-collar desk job--in order to care for her newborn...
Lemon
Kwŏn, Yŏ-sŏn
Paper Book
New York Times Book Review: Editor's Choice  Philadelphia Inquirer: Best Book of the Month   World Literature Today: Notable Translation of the Year   CrimeReads: Best International Crime Novel of the Year Ms. Magazine:...
Love in the big city : a novel
Park, Sang Young
Paper Book
A funny, transporting, surprising, and poignant novel that was one of the highest-selling debuts of recent years in Korea, Love in the Big City tells the story of a young gay man searching for happiness in the lonely city of Seoul Love in the Big City is the English...
Please look after mom : a novel
Sin, Kyæong-suk.
Paper Book
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.
The waiting
Gendry-Kim, Keum Suk
Paper Book
The story begins with a mother's confession...sisters permanently separated by a border during the Korean War Keum Suk Gendry-Kim was an adult when her mother revealed a family secret: She had been separated from her sister during the Korean War. It's not an uncommon story--the...
Bluebeard's first wife
Ha, Sæong-nan
Paper Book
A woman spends a night with her fiance and his friends and overhears a terrible secret that has bound them together since high school. A man grows increasingly agitated by the apartment noise made by a young family living upstairs and arouses the suspicion of his own wife when the neighbours meet a...
The investigation : a novel
Yi, Chng-myng (Novelist)
Paper Book
Watanabe Yuichi, a young guard with a passion for reading, is ordered to investigate. The victim, Sugiyama, also a guard, was feared and despised throughout the prison and inquiries have barely begun when a powerful inmate confesses. But Watanbe is unconvinced; and as he interrogates both the...
The Good Son: A Novel
Jeong You Jeong
Ebook
"Ingeniously twisted." --Entertainment Weekly, "Must List" "Will leave even the most seasoned crime fiction readers guessing." --CrimeReads "[Jeong] maintains suspense about her inhuman-seeming protagonist's fate until the bitter end." --The...
The plotters
Kim, Un-su
Paper Book
"[A] powerhouse of a novel....It reads as if Haruki Murakami rewrote The Day of the Jackal." - Locus Magazine "Editor's Choice" New York Times Book Review "The Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2019" CrimeReads "Most...
Almond : a novel
Son, Wæon-p'yæong
Paper Book
A BTS fan favorite! A WALL STREET JOURNAL STORIES THAT CAN TAKE YOU ANYWHERE PICK * ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY'S STAY HOME AND READ PICK * SALON'S BEST AND BOLDEST * BUSTLE'S MOST ANTICIPATED  The Emissary meets The Curious Incident of the Dog in the...
The old woman with the knife : a novel
Ku, Pyŏng-mo
Paper Book
*A New York Times Book Review Notable Book* *An NPR Best Book of the Year* *An NPR Book We Love* *A New York Times Editors' Choice Pick* *A Most Anticipated Read in LitHub, CrimeReads, Thrillist, and Popsugar* *A Boston Globe Thriller...
Princess Bari
Hwang, Sæog-yæong
Paper Book
A modern-day quest novel, by one of Korea's most renowned novelists. Princess Bari tells the story of a young girl, frail and brave, who escapes from famine and death in North Korea in the 1990s. Seeking refuge in China before crossing oceans in the hold of a cargo ship, she...
Violets
Sin, Kyŏng-suk
Paper Book
By Man Asian Literary Prize winner Kyung-Sook Shin, "a moving delve into a lonely psyche" that follows a neglected young woman's search for human connection in contemporary Seoul (YZ Chin). San is twenty-two and alone when she happens upon a...
My brilliant life
Kim, Ae-ran
Paper Book
A BEST OF THE MONTH SELECTION BY OPRAH MAGAZINE AN NPR BEST BOOK OF 2021 "An eminent South Korean talent makes her American début in this poignant watercolor of a novel . . . Kim is a writer on the move." --O, The Oprah Magazine Ae-ran Kim's My...
The white book
Han, Kang
Paper Book
FROM HAN KANG, WINNER OF THE 2024 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE "[Han Kang writes in] intense poetic prose that . . . exposes the fragility of human life."--from the Nobel Prize citation SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE * A "formally daring, emotionally...

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