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The Korea Times

By Kwon Mee-yoo
A wave of Korean literature is set to reach English-language readers in 2025, ranging from a new novel by a Nobel Prize laureate to science fiction bestsellers and heart-warming healing fiction.
The highlight will be the English publication of another novel by Han Kang, the 2024 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her 2021 work We Do Not Part is slated for a January 20 release by Penguin Books.
The novel, co-translated by E. Yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris, explores the Jeju uprising, a tragic chapter in modern Korean history in which tens of thousands were killed in 1948 and 1949.

The story follows Kyungha as she uncovers haunting memories on Jeju Island while caring for a friend’s pet bird, intertwining themes of friendship and historical trauma in Han’s signature poetic prose.
Meanwhile, Chung Bora, a finalist for the International Booker Prize and the US National Book Award, will release two new novels in English: Red Sword in May and The Midnight Timetable in October, both translated by Anton Hur.
Red Sword ventures to a distant, war-ravaged planet, while The Midnight Timetable details enigmatic objects at a mysterious research centre, narrated by a night shift worker.

Cheon Seon-ran’s bestselling science fiction novel A Thousand Blues, about two sisters attempting to save a famous racehorse in a near-future world where robot jockeys ride horses, will be available in March.
Another work of Cheon’s, the vampire murder mystery The Midnight Shift, is due in August.
Won-pyung Sohn, known for Almond, will release Counterattacks at Thirty in March, a novel about young workers challenging the corporate status quo, translated by Sean Lin Halbert.

Jo Kyung-ran’s Blowfish, scheduled for July, intertwines the stories of a sculptor and an architect in a postmodern exploration of art and identity.
Pyun Hye-young’s short-story collection To the Kennels: And Other Stories, set for a January 16 release in the UK, delivers a chilling collection of Kafkaesque tales, while Kim Ewhan’s The Black Orb, an apocalyptic horror novel set in modern-day Seoul, will be available in February in the US.
Lovers of epic fantasy can look forward to Lee Yeong-do’s The Bird That Drinks Tears, which is often compared to the work of J.R.R. Tolkien. Set for publication by Harper Voyager, this classic Korean fantasy, translated by Hur, will be available in the US, the UK and Australia in 2025.
Rooted in feminist science fiction and fantasy, Amil’s short story collection Roadkill will arrive in May, appealing to a new generation seeking a bold, fresh viewpoint.

The trend of Korean healing novels continues with the US release of The Healing Season of Pottery by Yeon So-min on January 30. In this novel, a burned-out office worker finds solace in a pottery workshop, embracing the tactile and emotional warmth of clay.
Kim Ho-yeon’s international bestseller The Second Chance Convenience Store, which follows a retired teacher who transforms her neighbourhood after taking a mysterious homeless man into her convenience store, will be available for English readers in June.
In May, Park So-young’s young adult novel Snowglobe 2 will be published, wrapping up a two-volume dystopian saga that Entertainment Weekly described as “The Hunger Games meets Squid Game”.
In nonfiction, Ha Tae-wan’s essays Every Moment Was You: Notes on Loving and Parting, publishing in May, will offer solace and wisdom for navigating modern life’s challenges.
In September Moon Ju-hee’s The Kind Art of Korean Letter Writing will shed light for English readers on the fading tradition of handwritten correspondence from the perspective of an owner of Seoul’s beloved stationery shop Geulwoll.
Read the original story at The Korea Times.


Meet Terrance Hayes, who’s sparking romance rumours with ex-Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi – the award-winning American poet and academic is also an English professor at New York University

New Korean books in English to look forward to in 2025, from historical fiction to fantasy

Meet Harlan Coben, the author behind Netflix’s Missing You and Fool Me Once: the New Jersey-born talent is co-authoring a novel with Reese Witherspoon, and wrote The Stranger during his Uber rides

Donnie Yen as Wukong? Notable Monkey King adaptations in contemporary Hong Kong cinema

Books and literature

(From left) Counterattacks at Thirty by Won-pyung Sohn, We Do Not Part by Han Kang, and A Thousand Blues by Cheon Seon-ran are among the many English-language Korean books to look forward to in 2025. Photo: Harper Collins/Penguin

Han Kang’s English-language We Do Not Part will be released on January 20.

Cheon Seon-ran’s science fiction novel A Thousand Blues will be published in March.

Counterattacks at Thirty, by Won-pyung Sohn, will be released in March. Photo: Harper Collins

South Korean author Han Kang was the 2024 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Photo: AFP

Scottish author Ian Rankin on his favourite books and why he’s a ‘frustrated rock star’

Ian Rankin, author of the bestselling Inspector Rebus novels, reveals his favourite book, what he’s reading now and more.

The cover of Rankin’s new book. Photo: Mullholland Books/TNS

Rankin in Hong Kong in 2017. The Edinburgh-based author is a self-professed “frustrated rock star”. Photo: AFP

Rankin unexpectedly became a fan of Jilly Cooper’s raunchy romance Rivals after reading it as a last resort. Photo: Penguin

Ken Stott as Inspector Rebus in the 2000s British TV drama Rebus, which ran until 2007.

5 notable screen adaptations of Chiung Yao romance novels, including My Fair Princess

Ruby Lin and Zhao Wei in a still from My Fair Princess, a television adaptation of a popular romance novel of the same name by late Taiwanese writer Chiung Yao. 

Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia in a still from Outside the Window (1973).

A poster promoting a DVD of Fantasies Behind the Pearly Curtain, a film adaptation of a novel by Chiung Yao. 

Romance in the Rain starred Leo Ku, Zhao Wei and Ruby Lin.

A still from Cloud of Romance.

Korean author Kim Su-hyun on being true to yourself, as her hit guide gets English version

Kim Su-hyun’s I Decided to Live As Me has sold millions of copies in Asia since 2016. The South Korean author shares her excitement about a new English-language translation. Photo: Penguin Life

The cover of the English translation of Kim’s book. Photo: Penguin Life

Pedestrians in Seoul, South Korea. In her book, Kim gives checklists with the aim of helping readers follow the path they want to, not just the ones society sets out for them. Photo: AFP

Jungkook in New York. The BTS member helped propel sales of Kim’s book when it was seen among his possessions in travel series BTS: Bon Voyage. Photo: Reuters

A wooden pavilion stands amid modern buildings in Seoul. Kim’s message of being true to oneself has been a tenet of Eastern and Western philosophy for centuries. Photo: AFP

Why the Year of the Wood Snake starting in 2025 could bring major change, and more luck

A snake at a farm in Bangkok, Thailand. The next lunar new year will be a Year of the Wood Snake, which comes around every 60 years. The previous one, in 1965, saw dynamic change and upheaval. Are we in for more of the same? Photo: Getty Images

Snakes made of palm leaves are displayed in Shanghai to celebrate the previous Year of the Snake in 2013. Photo: Getty Images

Following the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, people line up to vote, most for the first time, in Alabama in the US in 1966. Photo: Getty Images

Angry depositors protest and clash with police outside the office of the chairman of the Canton Trust and Commercial Bank in 1965, the previous Year of the Wood Snake in the Chinese lunisolar calendar. Photo: Chan Kiu

Lifestyle

Arts

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Books

Nobel Prize laureate Han Kang’s translated novel We Do Not Part leads a strong line-up of new English-language Korean literature this year


Nobel Prize laureate Han Kang’s translated novel We Do Not Part leads a strong line-up of new English-language Korean literature this year.


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