25 Korean Books to Start With
Korean literature is not one thing. Some books feel sharp and political. Others stay close to home and settle into your chest in quiet ways that take days to shake off. This list brings together the titles that I think work well for anyone who wants a place to start. Some are well known. Some feel smaller and more intimate. All of them show a different part of what Korean writing can do.
Core Korean Fiction
1. Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-joo
This novel follows one woman’s life with a blunt honesty that exposes everyday sexism in a way that is hard to ignore.
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2. Please Look After Mom by Kyung-sook Shin
A family searches for a missing mother and is forced to face the quiet ways they failed to see her.
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3. The Vegetarian by Han Kang
A woman refuses to eat meat and her decision pulls apart the fragile structure of her marriage and her identity.
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4. Human Acts by Han Kang
A devastating look at collective grief after the 1980 Gwangju Uprising and the way trauma settles into a community.
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5. I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee
A personal record of therapy sessions that captures the exhaustion of depression in a simple and honest way.
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6. Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum
A small neighborhood bookshop becomes a quiet refuge for people trying to rebuild their lives at their own pace.
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7. Lemon by Kwon Yeo-sun
A murder case unravels through shifting voices that reveal how grief shapes memory and truth.
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8. Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-jin
A mother struggles to accept her daughter’s relationship and is forced to confront her own fear, pride and limits.
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9. Blowfish by Jo Kyung-ran
A woman moves through loneliness and small comforts while trying to make sense of a life that has gone quiet.
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10. At Dusk by Hwang Sok-yong
A quiet and reflective novel about a man looking back at the choices he made and the life he never lived.
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11. Almond by Sohn Won-pyung
A boy who cannot feel fear or anger learns what love and connection can look like when emotions do not follow the rules.
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12. Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park
A young man lives, loves, drinks and survives in Seoul while trying to find steadiness in friendships and messy relationships.
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Speculative, Strange and Edge-Lit
13. Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung
Stories that blend horror and satire to show the danger sitting just beneath ordinary life.
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14. Your Utopia by Bora Chung
Bleak and precise stories about survival in worlds that have started to lose their humanity.
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15. Walking Practice by Dolki Min
A sharp and unsettling story about desire, alienation and the distance between who we are and what we want.
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16. The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-eun
A woman stuck in a toxic job becomes part of a corporate scheme that turns disaster into entertainment.
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17. Counterweight by Djuna
A tightly built sci-fi thriller about control, surveillance and the power structures inside a tense futuristic world.
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Short Story Collections
18. Flowers of Mold by Ha Seong-nan
Stories that take ordinary moments and tilt them slightly until the familiar starts to feel uneasy.
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19. Shoko’s Smile by Choi Eun-young
Quiet stories about friendship, forgiveness and the misunderstandings that shape the way we carry each other.
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Thrillers and Page-Turners
20. The Plotters by Un-su Kim
A dark and playful crime novel about an assassin navigating a hidden world of conspiracies.
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21. The Hole by Hye-young Pyun
A man wakes after an accident to find he is trapped in a house where nothing feels as safe as it should.
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Korean-American and Diaspora
22. If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha
A group of women in Seoul face beauty culture, money pressure and friendships that hold them together.
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23. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
A multigenerational family leaves Korea for Japan and fights to build a life shaped by love, shame and persistence.
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24. Skinship by Yoon Choi
Stories about Korean-American families living with memory, distance and duty.
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25. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
A memoir about grief, food, identity and the ways we reach back toward the people we lose.
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If you’re new to Korean literature, start anywhere that pulls you in. Korean fiction covers so many moods that there is no wrong place to begin.
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• Audiobooks for Holidays Travel
• My Asian Era
