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
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
Un-su Kim
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...
Human Acts
Kang Han
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
Kyung-sook Shin
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....
Love in the Big City
Sang Young Park
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
Kyung-sook Shin
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
Keum Suk Gendry-Kim
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...
The Plotters
Un-su Kim
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
Won-pyung Sohn
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
Gu Byeong-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...
One Hundred Shadows
Hwang Jung-eun
Paper Book
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER! "There is an unforgettable, curious beauty to be found here." --Han Kang, Winner of the Man Booker International Prize for The Vegetarian Han Kang's Human Acts meets Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police in this understated...
My Brilliant Life
Kim Ae-ran
Paper Book
"A moving, earnest, and deeply-felt exploration of a unique family in all its joys and disappointments . . . an utter delight." --Claire Lombardo, New York Times bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever Had Ae-ran Kim's My Brilliant Life explores...
The White Book
Kang Han
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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