Just as with Japanese fiction, there are as many reasons to love Korean fiction as there are to love the fiction of any culture or country, your own or otherwise. But it can be difficult sometimes to know where to start. Maybe you’re interested in specific aspects of Korean culture. Maybe you just want to broaden your reading horizons. Whatever your reason, I hope you’ll be emboldened to find your new favourite read.
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
It feels almost too obvious to start here, since The Vegetarian won the International Man Booker Prize and has been an international bestseller. However, there’s good reason for it. Three sections and three voices tell the story of Yeong-hye, whose seemingly simple decision to eschew meat cascades into an interpersonal and mental health crisis. Delving into feminism, trauma, and the question of whether it is possible to live without causing harm, this truly is a masterpiece in any language.
Princess Bari by Hwang Sok-yong
Hwang is perhaps the most intensely compassionate writer I’ve ever encountered, telling stories of great suffering with great tenderness and without sensationalism. He understands the ways people act in terrible situations and how they manage to go on, and shows us the tenacity of both the human animal and the human spirit. Princess Bari is about a young girl with a hint of mystical power growing up in North Korea, but who finds herself fleeing to China and then to the UK, trying only to survive. When I finished this book I immediately went and purchased Familiar Things, which is incredible, too.
Our Twisted Hero by Yi Monyol
Transferred suddenly to a new school, Pyongt’ae doesn’t quite know what to expect of his new classmates, but he certainly doesn’t expect a clandestine war. Class monitor and bully Sokdae demands that Pyongt’ae fall in line, and when he refuses, the battle between self and group, between right and wrong, begins. This story of authority versus authoritarianism asks how much any of us can take, and also what it takes to repair what bullies have broken.
One Hundred Shadows by Hwang Jungeun
If you’ve seen Parasite, you know that “two Koreas” can mean rich and poor as much as North and South. Bong Joon-Ho definitely showed us the absurdity and unfairness of wealth disparity, but Hwang shows us a quieter, more introspective version. Eungyo and Mujae work in a run-down marketplace, but they’re confused when others call it a slum. They like their jobs and slightly oddball colleagues; why are the authorities trying to tear down what they’ve built, a cosmetic change that doesn’t understand their needs or hearts? In the midst of this, characters find their shadows “rising,” a mysterious occurrence that functions as a metaphor. But is it a metaphor for depression, for anger, for repressed desire, or for some even more nebulous force? Hwang leaves it to you to puzzle it out as Eungyo and Mujae balance the darkness against their light and gentle romance.
Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin
How can a woman disappear? A woman with a husband, children, a whole life—where can she go, that modern efforts can’t find her? The mystery is also the metaphor in the heart of this novel, in which So-nyo’s husband and adult children try to grasp at the woman they think they know in the present without fully understanding her past or their own. A thoughtful take on family and how women disappear into motherhood, Shin also shows us how mothers can and do emerge once more into their own individual selves.
The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Sun Mi-Whang
Speaking of mothers, this novella is a fable-like story of a hen who has spent her entire life providing eggs for a farmer. In her old age she wants only one thing before she dies: for one of her eggs to hatch, and to be able to care for that child. Though others mock and deride her, an unusual cross-species friendship helps her dream to blossom in an unexpected way. Though its view of motherhood can be read as self-abnegating and problematic, it does valorize motherhood in a deeply heartfelt way. I don’t see enough stories of straightforward celebration of mothers and motherhood, and this short book really did touch my heart.
Our Happy Time by Gong Ji-Young
This novel is most like a Korean Drama out of all of on the list, full of emotional twists and dramatic setups. It does, however, deal with very real issues of incarceration, sexual assault, and rape culture. It begins when a nun takes her heiress niece to do charity work in a prison, and reveals the secret hurts in all of their lives and families.
Your Republic is Calling You by Young-Ha Kim
A North Korean spy imbedded in South Korea is meant to be unfailingly loyal. But after 21 years—enough time to marry, have a child, build a career, and develop plenty of decadent capitalist interests—is Ki-yong doing it for his country or for himself? He has 24 hours to figure it out when he is finally, finally activated and asked to betray the shell of his life that may have grown into the only home he really knows.
Tongue by Kyung-Ran Jo
A woman scorned, it turns out, is nothing compared to a chef scorned. When Ji-won’s long-term boyfriend leaves her for a younger woman, her grief steals her joy in food. But as she obsessively watches his new relationship, she keeps cooking and cooking, and finally finds the perfect recipe for revenge.
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo
A provocative feminist novel that made big waves in Korea, the eponymous Jiyoung seems like a normal wife and mother. She meets all the expectations of those categories, a model of Korean womanhood. But in trying to reach that unattainable perfection of womanhood she becomes an avatar of womanhood, a repository for all kinds of women’s voices. Young and old, living and dead, Jiyoung’s uber-womanhood begins to disturb everyone around her. Are their spirits speaking through her? Is she insane? And, more pressingly, is there any other way to be in a world that has such impossible expectations?
Bonus Entry: Though not written in Korean, If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha is a novel told in four voices that come together to make a searing indictment of modern Korean culture and beauty standards. It condemns the expectations placed on women without condemning the women themselves, an impressive feat as the characters deal with everything from childbearing expectations to plastic surgery to sex work.
