Korean Literature

A woman meets her next-door neighbor and loans her a spatula, then starts suffering horrific gaps in her memory. A man, feeling jilted by an unrequited love, becomes obsessed with sorting through his neighbors' garbage in the belief that it will teach him how to better relate to people. A landlord decides to raise the rent, and his tenants hatch a plan to kill him at a team-building retreat. In 10 captivating, unnerving stories, Flowers of Mold presents a range of ordinary individuals who have found themselves left behind by an increasingly urbanized and fragmented world.

Years later, the Korean War is a distant memory for the parents hosting their children for a Christmas party. But when an old photograph rekindles those memories, they're soon wrapped up in telling their children how they fell in love. As a nurse and a downed pilot, they'd found themselves on the run from the enemy - but the only thing that could snare them was true love. 

Maya loves to cook with her grandmother - her Halmunee - to connect with the rich family history associated with each dish, a history Maya's mom would prefer stayed in the past. While cooking with Halmunee, something remarkable happens - the food creates such a strong memory that Maya and Halmunee are transported back in time through the memory itself. Halmunee explains that the women in her family have the gift of time travel through food and Maya can do it too, if she practices.

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.

Whale, set in a remote village in South Korea, follows the lives of many linked characters, including Geumbok, an extremely ambitious woman who has been chasing an indescribable thrill ever since she first saw a whale crest in the ocean; her mute daughter, Chunhui, who communicates with elephants; and a one-eyed woman who controls honeybees with a whistle. Brimming with surprises and wicked humor, Whale is an adventure-satire of epic proportions by one of the most original voices in international literature.

Jade isn't even my real name. Jade began as my Starbucks name, because all children of immigrants have a Starbucks name. Jade has done all the right things. She's curated herself to fit right in at her law firm, but tells herself she has no choice. She's with a man who loves her, but isn't always herself around him. She's made her Omma and Baba proud, but resents that they can't properly understand her. Jade is perfectly in control of her life. Until one terrible night unravels Jade's carefully constructed world, leaving her wondering who she truly is.

The Monarch of Destruction and the armies of Chaos have descended upon Earth, leaving nothing but death and carnage in their wake. The fate of humanity lies in the hands of the newly crowned Shadow Monarch, Jinwoo Sung. Who will be the final victor when the dust settles on this timeless feud? And more importantly, will there be anything left of the world to save?

In this compelling and beautifully-patterned novel, Han Kang tells the interwoven stories of a Greek instructor who is losing his sight and a woman who refuses to speak. Uniquely involving, and thoughtful, it explores the depths and limits of human connection.

A boy of just six years old, Austin Roberts found himself perpetually in the way at the post-funeral gathering of his great uncle Jack. Frustrated and alone, he wandered out onto the front porch to find his great uncle Cat, Jack's brother, sitting alone, an old album on his lap. Oblivious to the world around them, the two begin an unlikely conversation and together embark on a journey that stretches almost seven decades in length.  

Peace has returned to the Pacific after the Taiwan War, but it doesn’t last. The Korean peninsula erupts in fire and blood, drawing America into a fresh conflict that sees use of some of the world’s deadliest weapons. In the aftermath, Navy fighter pilot Jack Knapp tells a news reporter about his experiences fighting the Korean People’s Army (KPA) and how he helped prevent a nuclear attack that could have destroyed an American city.

Helena Rho was six years old when her family left Seoul, Korea, for America and its opportunities. Years later, her Korean-ness behind her, Helena had everything a model minority was supposed to want: she was married to a white American doctor and had a beautiful home, two children, and a career as an assistant professor of pediatrics. For decades she fulfilled the expectations of others. All the while Helena kept silent about the traumas - both professional and personal - that left her anxious yet determined to escape.

Riley Oh can't wait to see her sister get initiated into the Gom clan, a powerful lineage of Korean healing witches their family has belonged to for generations. Her sister, Hattie, will earn her Gi bracelet and finally be able to cast spells without adult supervision. Although Riley is desperate to follow in her sister's footsteps when she herself turns 13, she's a saram - a person without magic. Riley was adopted, and despite having memorized every healing spell she's ever heard, she often feels like the odd one out in her family and the gifted community.

In the summer of 2002, 19-year-old Kim Hae-on was murdered in what became known as the High School Beauty Murder. There were two suspects: Shin Jeongjun, who had a rock-solid alibi, and Han Manu, to whom no evidence could be pinned. The case went cold.

Elena Soo has always felt overshadowed. Whether by her more successful older sisters, her more popular twin brother, or her more outgoing best friend, everyone except Elena seems to know exactly who they are and what they want. But she is certain about one thing—she has no interest in going to prom. While the rest of the school is giddy over corsages and dresses, Elena would rather spend her time working to save the local community center. So when international K-pop superstar Robbie Choi shows up at her house to ask her to prom, Elena is more confused than ever. 

When Lily and her family move in with her sick grandmother, a magical tiger straight out of her halmoni's Korean folktales arrives, prompting Lily to unravel a secret family history. Long, long ago, Halmoni stole something from the tigers. Now they want it back. And when one of the tigers approaches Lily with a deal - return what her grandmother stole in exchange for Halmoni's health - Lily is tempted to agree. But deals with tigers are never what they seem! With the help of her sister and her new friend Ricky, Lily must find her voice...and the courage to face a tiger.

This “sweeping intergenerational saga" tells the story of a pampered and defiant South Korean matriarch thrust into the afterlife from which she seeks a second chance to make amends (Kirstin Chen)—and fights off a tragic curse that could devastate generations to come.

Four days before Christmas, eight-year-old Bo loses his mother in a tragic accident, twenty-eight-year-old Brandon loses his job after a hostile takeover of his big-media employer, and forty-eight-year-old Blue, a key witness in a criminal trial against an infamous now-defunct tech startup, struggles to reconnect with his family. So begins Jinwoo Chong's dazzling time-bending debut that blends elements of neo-noir and speculative fiction as the lives of Bo, Brandon, and Blue begin to intersect, uncovering a network of secrets and an experimental technology that threatens to upend life itself.

When her friends gift her a 23-and-Me test as a gag, high school senior Chloe Kang doesn’t think much of trying it out. She doesn’t believe anything will come of it—she’s an only child, her mother is an orphan, and her father died in Seoul before she was even born, and before her mother moved to Oklahoma. It’s been just Chloe and her mom her whole life. But the DNA test reveals something Chloe never expected— she’s got a whole extended family from her father’s side half a world away in Korea.

Winter Park and Bobby Bae are Korean American high school juniors whose families have been friends since the kids were making crayon art. They, however, are repulsed by each other. Winter is MIT-bound, comfortable keeping people at arm’s length. Bobby is as Type-A, anxious, and risk-averse as you can get. He’s also been recently dumped. That’s why, when Winter’s and Bobby’s parents insist that they go on a northeast college campus tour together, both teens find reasons to accept even though the idea of being stuck in a car together for 700 miles sounds unbearable.

Can’t I Go Instead follows the lives of the daughter of a Korean nobleman and her maidservant in the early 20th-century. When the daughter’s suitor is arrested as a Korean Independence activist, and she is implicated during the investigation, she is quickly forced into marriage to one of her father’s Japanese employees and shipped off to the United States. At the same time, her maidservant is sent in her mistress’s place to be a comfort woman to the Japanese Imperial army. Years of hardship, survival and even happiness follow.