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
Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more 'plant-like' existence, decides to become a vegetarian,...
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...
The Disaster Tourist
Ko-Eun Yun
Paper Book
A satirical Korean eco-thriller with a fierce feminist sensibility.
Human Acts
Kang Han
Paper Book
A riveting, poetic and unrelentingly powerful work from the author of the 2016 Man Booker International Prize-winning novel The Vegetarian.
I'm Waiting for You: And Other Stories
Kim Bo-young
Paper Book
THE TIMES SCIENCE FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH 'Her fiction is a breath-taking piece of a cinematic art ... powerful and graceful' - Bong Joon-ho, Oscar-winning director of Parasite 'Dazzling' - The Times A stunning collection of short...
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Cho Nam-Joo
Paper Book
A GUARDIAN 'ONE TO LOOK OUT FOR 2020'  A RED MAGAZINE 'CAN'T WAIT TO READ' BOOK OF 2020   THE MULTI-MILLION-COPY SELLING SOUTH KOREAN SENSATION THAT HAS GOT THE WHOLE WORLD TALKING Kim Jiyoung is a...
Lemon
Yeo-sun Kwon
Paper Book
This is not a murder story. It is the story of those left behind. Parasite meets The Good Son in this piercing psychological portrait of three women haunted by a brutal, unsolved crime.In the summer of 2002, nineteen-year-old Kim Hae-on was murdered in what became known as the...
Please Look After Mom
Kyung-sook Shin
Paper Book
Please Look After Mother is the story of So-nyo, a wife and mother, who has lived a life of sacrifice and compromise. In the past she suffered a stroke, leaving her vulnerable and often confused. Now, travelling from the Korean countryside to the Seoul of her grown-up children, So-nyo is...
Shoko's Smile: Stories
Eunyoung Choi
Paper Book
A bestselling and award-winning debut collection from one of South Korea's most prominent young writers. In the tradition of Sally Rooney, Banana Yoshimoto, and Marilynne Robinson - writers from different cultures who all take an unvarnished look at human relationships and the female experience -...
The Investigation
J. M. Lee
Paper Book
At once a captivating mystery and an epic lament for freedom and humanity in the darkest of times, The Investigation - inspired by a true story - is a sweeping, gripping tale perfect for fans of The Shadow of the Wind.Longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction PrizeFukuoka Prison, 1944. Beyond...
The Good Son: A Novel
Jeong You Jeong
Paper Book
'For fans of Jo Nesbo and Patricia Highsmith' A. J. Finn, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window YOU WAKE UP COVERED IN BLOOD THERE'S A BODY DOWNSTAIRS YOUR MOTHER'S BODY YOU DIDN'T DO...
The Plotters
Un-su Kim
Paper Book
A dark, funny, deliciously different literary thriller about a jaded hitman, set in the criminal underworld of Seoul 'Kill Bill meets Murakami' D. B. John, author of Star of the North 'A work of literary genius' Karen Dionne, internationally bestselling author of Home 'I...
The Old Woman with the Knife
Gu Byeong-mo
Paper Book
Hornclaw is a sixty-five-year-old female contract killer who is considering retirement. A fighter who has experienced loss and grief early on in life, she lives in a state of self-imposed isolation, with just her dog, Deadweight, for company. While on an assassination job for the 'disease control'...
Violets
Kyung-sook Shin
Paper Book
'Dreamy, immersive and evocative' TLS 'Darkly beautiful' Frances Cha 'Strange and gripping' Guardian San is twenty-two and alone when she happens upon a job at a flower shop in Seoul's bustling city centre. Haunted by...
Untold Night and Day
Bae Suah
Paper Book
A hypnotic, disorienting story of parallel lives unfolding over a day and a night in the sweltering heat of Seoul's summer A hypnotic, disorienting story of parallel lives unfolding over a day and a night in the sweltering heat of Seoul's summer For two years,...
The White Book
Kang Han
Paper Book
From the winner of the Man Booker International Prize for The Vegetarian comes a stunning meditation on the colour white; about light, about death and about ritual

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