Unmissable Korean Novels

K-Pop bands, K-dramas and webtoons have become widely popular in recent years. But how about Korean novels? Check out our hand-picked titles for fans of Korean culture everywhere!

Updated June 18, 2025
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The plotters.
Kim, On-su, 1972-
Paper Book
A fantastical crime novel set in an alternate Seoul where assassination guilds compete for market dominance, for fans of Han Kang, Patrick DeWitt and Kill Bill. Reseng is an assassin, and behind every assassination, there is an anonymous mastermind--a plotter--working in...
Whale.
Myeong-Kwan, Cheon
Paper Book
A sweeping, multi-generational tale blending fable, farce and fantasy.
8 lives of a century-old trickster
Lee, Mirinae
Paper Book
"Fantastically original doesn't begin to describe this exhilarating globe-spanning, decade-hopping masterpiece. Lee has achieved the impossible--from a fractured century of agonies and betrayals, she has woven a novel of immense beauty and regeneration." -- Junot Díaz, author of ...
Love in the big city.
Park, Sang Young, 1988-
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...
Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop
Hwang, Po-ræum
Ebook
If I had your face.
Cha, Frances
Paper Book
A riveting, feminist debut about four women navigating contemporary South Korea, a world of strict social hierarchies, extreme plastic surgery and K-pop fan mania. "Even as a girl, I knew the only chance I had was to change my face. When I looked into the mirror, I knew...
Mater 2-10
Sok-Yong, Hwang
Paper Book
SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE International Booker-nominated virtuoso Hwang Sok-yong is back with another powerful story -- an epic tale that threads together a century of Korean history. In contemporary Seoul, a laid-off worker stages a months-long sit-in atop a...
When we fell apart.
Wiley, Soon
Paper Book
A profoundly moving and suspenseful drama that untangles the complicated ties that bind families together--or break them apart--as a young Korean American man's search for answers about his girlfriend's mysterious death becomes a soul-searching journey into his own bi-cultural identity ...
Greek Lessons : A Novel.
NULL
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   NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE * A...
The vegetarian.
Han, Kang, 1970-
Paper Book
A beautiful, unsettling novel in three acts, about rebellion and taboo, violence and eroticism, and the twisting metamorphosis of a soul. Winner of the 2016 Man Booker International Prize. WINNER OF THE 2024 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE.
Hiver ♭a Sokcho
Paper Book
The island of sea women.
See, Lisa
Paper Book
A new novel from Lisa See, the New York Times bestselling author of The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, about female friendship and family secrets on a small Korean island. Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls living on the Korean island of Jeju, are best friends that come...
Kim Jiyoung, born 1982. [online electronic book]
Cho, Nam-ju, 1978-
Ebook
The runaway bestseller that has sold over one million copies internationally, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is the most important book to have come out of South Korea since Han Kang's The Vegetarian. Kim Jiyoung is the most common name for Korean women born in the 1980s.

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