What are your favorite books by Korean authors these days?

Which books have you enjoyed by modern Korean authors (from 2005 onward, more or less)?

My favorite is still Shin Kyung-sook’s Please Look After Mom (엄마를 부탁해). The way she describes life in rural Korea reminds me of my first couple of years teaching at a tiny elementary school (35 students total) in Daegu’s countryside.

Other than that, my book club loved Han Kang’s Human Acts, and I got a lot out of it from having visited Gwangju before.

Frances Cha’s If I Had Your Face was good, but not very impactful, though I liked Pachinko more for the historical details Min Jin Lee put into it. I went to Tsuruhashi, Osaka’s Koreantown, as part of the background for my travel memoir, and having read Pachinko, which is largely set there, helped a lot.

I’m looking forward to Bae Myung-hoon’s Launch Something!, which I bought a couple of years ago and keep bumping in favor of other books. It sounds fun, though.

submitted by /u/whereisdaegu
[link] [comments]

Latest News from Korea

Latest Entertainment from Korea

Learn People & History of Korea