With a rich literary history spanning 1500 years, Korean Literature has a long legacy of important writings. For the modern day, it has a prominent position in popular culture, especially in TV and pop music. But it also has a thriving literary scene and Quizlit has selected 7 of the Best Korean Books to read.
1. Human Acts by Han Kang
Han Kang’s second novel follows the aftermath of a young boy’s shocking death during a violent student uprising as told from the perspectives of the event’s victims and their loved ones.
When a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed in the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre. Through their collective heartbreak and acts of hope unfolds the tale of a brutalized people in search of a voice.
Han Kang is a wonderful author who also penned one of the bestselling Korean books of all time, The Vegetarian
2. The Nine Cloud Dream by Kim Man-Jung
Often considered the greatest work of classic Korean fiction, The Nine Cloud Dream poses the question: will the life we dream of truly make us happy? A historical novel set in 9th-century Tang China, its wondrous story begins when a young monk living on a sacred Lotus Peak succumbs to the temptation of eight fairy maidens. As punishment for disobeying his master and doubting his Buddhist teachings, the monk is reincarnated as the most ideal of men.
On his journey he encounters the eight fairies in human form, each one furthering his journey towards understanding the fleeting value of his good fortune. As his successes build, he comes closer and closer to finally comprehending a fundamental truth of the Buddha’s wisdom: that reality and dreams are ultimately indistinguishable.
3. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Pachinko follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan.
So begins a sweeping saga of an exceptional family in exile from its homeland and caught in the indifferent arc of history. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, its members are bound together by deep roots as they face enduring questions of faith, family, and identity.
4. Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park
Love in the Big City is an energetic, joyful, and moving novel that depicts both the glittering nighttime world of Seoul and the bleary-eyed morning-after.
Young is a cynical yet fun-loving Korean student who pinballs from home to class to the beds of recent Tinder matches. He and Jaehee, his female best friend and roommate, frequent nearby bars where they suppress their anxieties about their love lives, families, and money with rounds of soju and freezer-chilled Marlboro Reds. Yet in time even Jaehee settles down, leaving Young alone to care for his ailing mother and find companionship in his relationships with a series of men, including one whose handsomeness is matched by his coldness, and another who might end up being the great love of his life.
5. The Guest by Hwang Sok-Yong
Based on actual events, The Guest is a profound portrait of a divided people haunted by a painful past, and a generation’s search for reconciliation.
During the Korean War, Hwanghae Province in North Korea was the setting of a gruesome fifty-two day massacre. In an act of collective amnesia the atrocities were attributed to American military, but in truth they resulted from malicious battling between Christian and Communist Koreans.
Forty years later, Ryu Yosop, a minister living in America returns to his home village, where his older brother once played a notorious role in the bloodshed. Besieged by vivid memories and visited by the troubled spirits of the deceased, Yosop must face the survivors of the tragedy and lay his brother’s soul to rest.
With intense interweaving narratives, The Guest is a daring and ambitious novel from a major figure in world literature.
6. Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung
Cursed Bunny is a genre-defying collection of short stories by Korean author Bora Chung. Blurring the lines between magical realism, horror, and science-fiction, Chung uses elements of the fantastic and surreal to address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society.
Anton Hur’s translation skilfully captures the way Chung’s prose effortlessly glides from being terrifying to wryly humorous.
7. I’ll be Right There by Shin Kyung Sook
“I’ll Be Right There,” follows a group of college-age friends coming of age in tumultuous 1980s South Korea, after one dictatorship has collapsed and another has taken its place. The novel opens with the narrator, Yoon, receiving a call from her ex-boyfriend, who tells her that a revered former professor, now aged, is nearing death.
The novel is full of beautiful and tragic moments between friends, a tender, complex exploration of shared stories, and, perhaps more important, the weight of a collective history on individual relationships.
If you enjoyed our selection of the Best Korean Books to Read in English, check out our Recommendations for the Best SE Asian Books to Read
