About Korea

“Available recommendation signals cluster around About, Japan, Historical, Fiction, North lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for imaginative storytelling, atmosphere, or character-driven reflection. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

A haunting memoir of teaching English to the sons of North Korea's ruling class during the last six months of Kim Jongil's reign Every day, three times a day, the students march in two straight lines, singing praises to Kim Jongil and North Korea: Without you, there is no motherland. Without you, there is no us. It is a chilling scene, but grad...

Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years?a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Ilsung, the unchallenged rise to power of his son Kim Jongil, and the devastation of a farranging famine that killed onefifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape most of us have never before seen, awardwinning journali...

“Available recommendation signals cluster around Fiction, About, Korea lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for imaginative storytelling, atmosphere, or character-driven reflection. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

"In a grand gesture of reclamation and remembrance, Mr. Halberstam has brought the war back home."The New York Times David Halberstam's magisterial and thrilling The Best and the Brightest was the defining book about the Vietnam conflict. More than three decades later, Halberstam used his unrivaled research and formidable journalistic skills to ...

Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother?a singer ?stolen? to Pyongyang?and an influential father who runs a work camp for orphans. Superiors in the North Korean state soon recognize the boy?s loyalty and keen instincts. Considering himself ?a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world,? Jun Do rises in the ranks. He becomes a profe...

A FRESH, FUNNY, UPCLOSE LOOK AT HOW SOUTH KOREA REMADE ITSELF AS THE WORLD'S POP CULTURE POWERHOUSE OF THE TWENTYFIRST CENTURYBy now, everyone in the world knows the song "Gangnam Style" and Psy, an instantly recognizable star. But the song's international popularity is no passing fad. "Gangnam Style" is only one tool in South Korea's extraordina...

Yeonmi Park has told the harrowing story of her escape from North Korea as a child many times, but never before has she revealed the most intimate and devastating details of the repressive society she was raised in and the enormous price she paid to escape. Park?s family was loving and closeknit, but life in North Korea was brutal, practically med...

In this rare insider's view into contemporary North Korea, a highranking counterintelligence agent describes his life as a former poet laureate to Kim Jongil and his breathtaking escape to freedom."The General will now enter the room."Everyone turns to stone. Not moving my head, I direct my eyes to a point halfway up the archway where Kim Jongil...

In the course of a couple of generations, South Koreans took themselves out of the paddy fields and into Silicon Valley, establishing themselves as a democracy alongside the advanced countries of the world. Yet for all their ambition and achievement, the new Koreans are a curiously selfdeprecating people. Theirs is a land with a rich and complex p...

A New York Times bestseller, the shocking story of one of the few people born in a North Korean political prison to have escaped and survived.North Korea is isolated and hungry, bankrupt and belligerent. It is also armed with nuclear weapons. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people are being held in its political prison camps, which have existed twice a...

“Available recommendation signals cluster around Historical, Fiction, Teen, Young, Adult lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for imaginative storytelling, atmosphere, or character-driven reflection. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

How friendship, European literature, and a charismatic professor defy war, oppression, and the absurd Set in 1980s South Korea amid the tremors of political revolution, I?ll Be Right There follows Jung Yoon, a highly literate, twentysomething woman, as she recounts her tragic personal history as well as those of her three intimate college friend...

The Kim dynasty has ruled North Korea for over 60 years. Most of that period has found the country suffering under mature Stalinism characterized by manipulation, brutality and tight social control. Nevertheless, some citizens of Kim Jong Il's regime manage to transcend his tyranny in their daily existence. This book describes that difficult but f ...

?A meaty, fastpaced portrait of North Korean society, economy, politics and foreign policy.? Foreign AffairsThe definitive account of North Korea, its veiled past and uncertain future, from the former Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security CouncilIn The Impossible State, seasoned internationalpolicy expert and lauded scholar Victor ...

Possessing a wisdom and maturity rarely found in a first novelist, KoreanAmerican writer Nora Okja Keller tells a heartwrenching and enthralling tale in this, her literary debut. Comfort Woman is the story of Akiko, a Korean refugee of World War II, and Beccah, her daughter by an American missionary. The two women are living on the edge of society...

WIth a new prefaceIn this classic tale, Richard E. Kim paints seven vivid scenes from a boyhood and early adolescence in Korea at the height of the Japanese occupation, 1932 to 1945. Taking its title from the grim fact that the occupiers forced the Koreans to renounce their own names and adopt Japanese names instead, the book follows one Korean fam...

Named one of the best books of 2015 by The Economist Private Markets, Fashion Trends, Prison Camps, Dissenters and Defectors.North Korea is one of the most troubled societies on earth. The country's 24 million people live under a violent dictatorship led by a single family, which relentlessly pursues the development of nuclear arms, which perio...

MAN ASIAN LITERARY PRIZE WINNERWhen sixtynineyearold Sonyo is separated from her husband among the crowds of the Seoul subway station, her family begins a desperate search to find her. Yet as longheld secrets and private sorrows begin to reveal themselves, they are forced to wonder: how well did they actually know the woman they called Mom To...

In earlytwentiethcentury Korea, Najin Han, the privileged daughter of a calligrapher, longs to choose her own destiny, though her countrynewly occupied by Japanis crumbling, and her family, led by her stern father, is facing difficulties that seem insurmountable. Narrowly escaping an arranged marriage, Najin takes up a new role as a companion...

Based on a remarkable true story, the New York Times bestselling author of Please Look After Mom brilliantly images the life of Yi Jin, an orphan who would fall under the affections of the Empress and become a jewel in the late Joseon Court.When a novice French diplomat arrives for an audience with the Emperor, he is enraptured by the Joseon Dynast...

From the author of The Calligrapher?s Daughter comes the riveting story of two sisters, one raised in the United States, the other in South Korea, and the family that bound them together even as the Korean War kept them apart.In 1948 Najin and Calvin Cho, with their young daughter Miran, travel from South Korea to the United States in search of new...

Shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize From Booker Prizewinner and literary phenomenon Han Kang, a lyrical and disquieting exploration of personal grief, written through the prism of the color whiteWhile on a writer's residency, a nameless narrator wanders the twin white worlds of the blank page and snowy Warsaw. THE WHITE BOOK be...

“Available recommendation signals cluster around Fiction, About, Korea lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for imaginative storytelling, atmosphere, or character-driven reflection. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

“Available recommendation signals cluster around North, Korea, Fiction, About lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for imaginative storytelling, atmosphere, or character-driven reflection. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

“Available recommendation signals cluster around Fiction, About, Korea lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for imaginative storytelling, atmosphere, or character-driven reflection. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

An emotionally riveting debut novel about war, family, and forbidden love?the unforgettable saga of two illfated lovers in Korea and the heartbreaking choices they?re forced to make in the years surrounding the civil war that still haunts us today.When the communistbacked army from the north invades her home, sixteenyearold Haemi Lee, along wit...

Love in the Big City is the Englishlanguage debut of Sang Young Park, one of Korea?s most exciting young writers. A runaway bestseller, the novel hit the top five lists of all the major bookstores and went into nine printings. Both awardwinning for its unique literary voice and perspective, and particularly resonant with young readers, it has bee...

In Native Speaker, author Changrae Lee introduces readers to Henry Park. Park has spent his entire life trying to become a true American?a native speaker. But even as the essence of his adopted country continues to elude him, his Korean heritage seems to drift further and further away. Park's harsh Korean upbringing has taught him to hide his emo...

The Talented Mr. Ripley meets The Bad Seed in this breathless, chilling psychological thriller by the bestselling novelist known as "Korea's Stephen King" Who can you trust if you can't trust yourself Early one morning, twentysixyearold Yujin wakes up to a strange metallic smell, and a phone call from his brother asking if everything's all ri...

Changrae Lee, the bestselling and awardwinning author of Native Speaker, A Gesture Life, and Aloft returns with his most ambitious novel yeta spellbinding story of how love and war echo through an entire lifetime.June Han was orphaned as a girl by the Korean War. Hector Brennan was a young GI who fled the petty tragedies of his small town to ser...

Suzy Park is a twentynineyearold Korean American interpreter for the New York City court system who makes a startling and ominous discovery about her family history that will send her on a chilling quest. Five years prior, her parentshardworking greengrocers who forfeited personal happiness for their children's gainwere brutally murdered in ...

From the novelist dubbed "the Korean Henning Mankell" (The Guardian) comes a fantastical crime novel set in an alternate Seoul where assassination guilds compete for market dominance. Perfect for fans of Han Kang and Patrick deWitt.Behind every assassination, there is an anonymous masterminda plotterworking in the shadows. Plotters quietly dict...

A seductive, disorienting novel that manipulates the fragile line between dreams and reality, by South Korea?s leading contemporary writer A startling and boundarypushing novel, Untold Night and Day tells the story of a young woman?s journey through Seoul over the course of a night and a day. It?s 28yearold Ayami?s final day at her boxoffice ...

An ecothriller with a fierce feminist sensibility, The Disaster Tourist engages with the global dialog around climate activism, dark tourism, and the #MeToo movement.For ten years, Yona has been stuck behind a desk as a coordinator for Jungle, a travel company specializing in vacation packages to destinations devastated by disaster and climate cha...

With this compelling and unforgettable memoir based on her acclaimed TED Talk, which has over 10 million views, Hyeonseo Lee becomes one of the first female defectors from North Korea to share her story; like I Am Malala and Infidel, this is a narrative of sacrifice, survival, and extraordinary courage.As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo...

Finalist for the 2019 Dayton Literary Peace Prize For fans of Min Jin Lee's Pachinko and Lilac Girls, the heartbreaking history of Korea is brought to life in this deeply moving and redemptive debut that follows two sisters separated by World War II.Korea, 1943. Hana has lived her entire life under Japanese occupation. As a haenyeo, a female diver ...

Mija and Youngsook, two girls living on the Korean island of Jeju, are best friends who come from very different backgrounds. When they are old enough, they begin working in the sea with their village?s allfemale diving collective, led by Youngsook?s mother. As the girls take up their positions as baby divers, they know they are beginning a lif...

“Available recommendation signals cluster around NonFiction, North, Korea, History, About lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for big-picture nonfiction and accessible learning. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

From the internationally bestselling author of The Vegetarian, a rare and astonishing (The Observer) portrait of political unrest and the universal struggle for justice.In the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dongho is shockingly killed.The story of this tragic episode unfolds in a sequence of interconnected ch...

"Destined to become a classic" (Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking), this harrowing memoir of life inside North Korea was the first account to emerge from the notoriously secretive country and it remains one of the most terrifying. Amid escalating nuclear tensions, Kim Jongun and North Korea's other leaders have kept a tight grasp on the...

In 1945 US troops arrived in Korea for what would become America?s longestlasting conflict. While history books claim without equivocation that the war lasted from 1950 to 1953, those who have actually served there know better. By closely analyzing US intelligence before June 25, 1950 (the war?s official start), and the actions of key players like...

Andrei Lankov has gone where few outsiders have ever been. A native of the former Soviet Union, he lived as an exchange student in North Korea in the 1980s. He has studied it for his entire career, using his fluency in Korean and personal contacts to build a rich, nuanced understanding. In The Real North Korea, Lankov substitutes cold, clear analys...

Sunhee and her older brother, Taeyul, live in Korea with their parents. Because Korea is under Japanese occupation, the children study Japanese and speak it at school. Their own language, their flag, the folktales Uncle tells them?even their names?are all part of the Korean culture that is now forbidden. When World War II comes to Korea, Sunhee ...

A powerful and taut novel about racial tensions in Los Angeles, following two families?one KoreanAmerican, one AfricanAmerican?grappling with the effects of a decadesold crimeIn the wake of the police shooting of a black teenager, Los Angeles is as tense as it?s been since the unrest of the early 1990s. But Grace Park and Shawn Matthews have the...

The Accusation received astonishing attention in hardcover and became a global publishing sensation, hailed as the first book of dissident fiction to emerge from North Korea. A collection of searing and heartwrenching stories by an anonymous North Korean writer who is still living in the country, The Accusation was smuggled to South Korea to be pu...

A Korean Charlotte's WebMore than 2 million copies sold This is the story of a hen named Sprout. No longer content to lay eggs on command, only to have them carted off to the market, she glimpses her future every morning through the barn doors, where the other animals roam free, and comes up with a plan to escape into the wild?and to hatch an egg...

On 25 June, 1950, the invasion of South Korea by the Communist North launched one of the bloodiest conflicts of the last century. The seemingly limitless power of the Chinesebacked North was thrown against the ferocious firepower of the UNbacked South in a war that can be seen today as the stark prelude to Vietnam.Max Hastings drew on firsthand ...