Korean Literature

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.

도쿄 아사쿠사 상점가의 오래된 화과자점 구리마루당을 물려받은 젊은 주인 구리타 진과 정체불명의 화과자 전문가 아오이가 화과자를 통해 사람들의 마음을 위로하는 『변두리 화과자점 구리마루당』제1권. 메이지 시대 때부터 4대째 이어오는 소문난 노포 '구리마루당'의 젊은 주인 구리타 진은 늘 마음 한구석에 부모님을 향한 죄송함을 품고 있다. 일찍이 후계자가 되어 가게를 물려받기를 원했던 부모님의 뜻을 거스르고 화과자와 거리를 두며 생활했는데, 1년 전 부모님이 교통사고로 갑자기 타계한 후 결국 부모님을 위해서 구리마루당의 4대째 주인이 되기로 결심한다.

It's been a year since Penny first walked through the doors of the Dallergut Dream Department Store, and surviving a year at the store means one thing… She is now an official employee of the dream industry! She can finally take the express commuter train to the Company District, where all the dream-production companies are located, and discover how all raw dream materials and testing equipment are produced. But the Company District is not quite what she expected. Instead it hides a secret underbelly of the magical industry that Penny thought she was a part of.

For rollercoaster designer Theo, living on the edge is just part of the job. He’s used to wandering the world perfecting thrills, his heart immune to commitment. But then a commission in repressive North Korea exposes him to emotions he’s never dared to feel. Tour guide Min has a soul that wants to soar, but she knows it’s safer to build walls around her heart and mind. Skilled in showcasing the mesmerising beauty of capital city Pyongyang without revealing its darker secrets, she introduces Theo to a country he will never forget....

Boy Genius is a powerful identity satire, the picaresque odyssey of a child seeking to avenge the wrongs perpetrated on his parents. Park's genius, born into the turmoil of post-war Korea, is used as a puppet by the South Korean government - before being banished to America. From a remote New York city ghetto, the boy wages a clandestine guerilla war against all symbols of authority.

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.

When a widowed, aging mother allows Green, her thirty-something daughter, to move into her apartment, all she wants for her is a stable and quiet existence like her own. Ideally, a steady income and a good husband. But when Green turns up with her long-term girlfriend in tow, her mother is enraged and unwilling to welcome their relationship into her home. Her daughter's definition of family is not one she can accept. Green's involvement in a campus protest against unfair dismissals of gay colleagues throws her into deeper shambles.

When Eugene Kim assembles his three estranged daughters at his deathbed, he means to put them to the test. Vicious and pathetic in equal measure, he wants to test who will abject themselves for his favor—and, more importantly, his fortune. Each isolated and desperate to escape their circumstances, the sisters wrestle with the legacy of their abusive father as they attempt to imagine a future with others—colleagues, lovers, friends, family—as rage and shame courses through their blood.

Mina is a professional pickpocket and thief for a huge South Korean conglomerate (chaebol) into which she was born. Having brought great shame to the chaebol as a teenager, she is obligated to work as a criminal for them. This chaebol is also a crime syndicate. She desperately wants out of her dangerous and depressing existence. She sees a ray of hope in the character of Sienna who is the complete opposite to her. She becomes obsessed with Sienna to the point she complicates things on a truly horrific scale.

Jungmin is down on her luck. She's worked tirelessly as a screenwriter her whole life, and has finally burnt out. But after months of isolation, she realises it's time to make a change, and ventures out into the streets near Seoul. When she stumbles upon a pottery workshop, a new world opens up to her. Leaning into the joys of her craft, Jungmin’s heart is slowly warmed by the kiln’s intense heat. Everyone at the workshop has their own story to tell, and as summer ebbs to autumn, autumn to winter, winter to spring, wounds begin to heal.

At age 23, Cullen Thomas was, like most middle-class kids his age, looking for something meaningful and exciting to do before settling into the 9-to-5 routine. Possessed of a youthful, romantic view of the world, he set off for adventure in Asia and a job teaching English in Seoul, South Korea. But he got more than he ever bargained for when an ill-advised stunt led to a drug smuggling arrest and a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence.

Jin and Suja meet and fall in love while studying at university in Pyongyang. She is a young journalist from a prominent family, while he is from a small village of little means. Outside the school, North Korea has fallen under great political upheaval, plunged into chaos and famine. When Jin returns home to find his family starving, their food rations all but gone, he makes a rash decision that will haunt him for the rest of his life.

러시아의 문학의 위대한 거장 레프 똘스또이의 장편소설 『안나 까레니나』가 이명현 교수의 번역으로 열린책들에서 출간되었다. 『안나 까레니나』는 똘스또이의 예술적 재능이 한창 절정기에 달했을 때 집필된 작품으로, 『전쟁과 평화』, 『부활』과 더불어 그의 3대 대표작 중 하나로 평가받는 소설이다. 표도르 도스또예프스끼와 토마스 만, 윌리엄 포크너, 블라지미르 나보꼬프 등 세계의 대문호들이 이 소설에 대한 찬사를 아끼지 않았으며, 후대의 주요 작가들의 문학 세계에 지대한 영향을 미친 작품이다. 또한 생생한 감정선과 흥미로운 서사 덕에 각종 영화나 뮤지컬로도 수차례 제작되며 많은 이들의 꾸준한 사랑을 받았다.

When Yu-jin wakes up covered in blood and finds the body of his mother downstairs, he decides to hide the evidence and pursue the killer himself. Then young women start disappearing in his South Korean town. Whom is he hunting? And why does the answer take him back to his brother and father, who lost their lives many years ago? The Good Son is inspired by a true story.

유비가 세 번이나 몸소 찾아가 제갈량을 얻게 되는 이야기부터 시작됩니다. 제갈량이 유비에게 천하를 세 개로 나누라는 계책을 알려 주는 부분에서 우리는 그의 지혜에 놀라게 됩니다. 또한 흥미로운 이야기도 많습니다. 그 가운데서도 조운이 홀로 유비의 아들 유선을 구해 내는 이야기, 허수아비만 가득 실은 빈 배를 이용해 조조군에게서 10만 개의 화살을 거저 얻어 내는 이야기 등이 그렇습니다. 이런 이야기들은 자꾸 봐도 질리지 않고 볼수록 더 빠져드는 재미가 있습니다.

When 69-year-old So-nyo is separated from her husband among the crowds of the Seoul subway station, her family begins a desperate search to find her. Yet as long-held secrets and private sorrows begin to reveal themselves, they are forced to wonder: how well did they actually know the woman they called Mother?

Kevin is trying to remember what he's supposed to do if there's an intruder in the house: stay calm, don't look scared, call 911. At the same time, he's doing his best to figure out how the heck some guy with a bow and arrow got into the room. The archer's explanation - "I lost my balance, fell off the tiger, and landed here" - just adds to Kevin's bewilderment.

열아홉 수지는 소리를 듣지 못해도 불행하다고 느낀 적은 없다. 어렸을 때부터 엄마와 수지만 아는 수화로 완벽한 대화가 가능했고, 상상 속에서 모든 소리를 만들어 낼 수 있었으니까. 그런데 어느 날 인공 와우 수술을 받게 되면서 모든 게 달라진다. 완벽했던 침묵의 세계에서 불완전한 소음의 세계로 옮겨진 수지는 낯선 세상에 적응해 나가기 위해 새로운 발걸음을 준비한다. 눈이나 귀가 아닌 마음으로 세상을 바라보는 수지를 통해 독자들은 있는 그대로의 나 자신과 마주하는 법을 배우게 된다.

In her signature sharp prose, brilliantly translated by Jamie Chang, Nam-Joo returns with this haunting account of a neglected housing complex in the shadows of Town: a former fishing village bought out by a massive conglomerate. Town is prosperous and safe―but only if you’re a citizen with “valuable skills and assets,” which the residents of Saha Estates are not. Disenfranchised and tightlipped, the Saha are forced into harsh labor, squatting in moldy units without electricity.

로맨스 소설의 고전이자, 19세기 초 영국에서 유행한 고딕 소설로도 평가 받는, 여성 작가 샬럿 브론테의 대표작. 책은 가난한 고아 가정교사 제인 에어와 부유하지만 불행한 에드워드 로체스터의 사랑 이야기가 작품의 중심축을 이루고 이들의 사랑을 방해하는 장애물이 주된 갈등으로 작용한다. 작가는 자매들과 함께 다녔던 기숙 학교의 기억과, 비련으로 끝나고 만 사랑의 경험을 작품 속에 녹여낸다.