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Which Work of Korean Literature Should You Read Next? scrap download

나의 다음 한국문학 선택은?

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What was the first work of Korean literature you read? Maybe you came across it by chance. Someone might have recommended it to you, you may have spotted it in a bookstore, or perhaps you picked it up after reading about a new release. Whatever the case, that was the moment you, like Alice, fell down the rabbit hole into the world of Korean literature. Along the way, you may have encountered a scene that captivated you or a question that lingered in your mind long after you finished reading.

Now comes the difficult part: choosing your second book. Finding your next Korean read can feel oddly overwhelming. On online communities like Reddit, readers occasionally ask for recommendations for Korean books similar to the ones they’ve loved.

So here are several works that will take you one step deeper into the rabbit hole where your journey began—books that will keep your Korean literary adventure going when you’re not quite ready for it to end. The right “next” book depends on what your first book was. These works revisit familiar scenes from a different angle or reshape the questions you discovered in unexpected ways. Here, we suggest the perfect next reads for five Korean works that have captivated readers around the world.

If The Vegetarian was a story of a woman resisting violence and gradually transforming into a plant, Kim Soom’s “The Story of Roots” (included in the short story collection Will I Be Able to Touch the Tree?) explores plant life from a different angle. When the life of an artist obsessed with tree roots intersects with that of the narrator’s great-aunt, a former “comfort woman,” the image of the plant becomes a site where existential suffering and historical trauma converge. Readers who remember Yeong-hye and her brother-in-law’s body-painting scene in “Mongolian Mark” from The Vegetarian will likely find themselves deeply drawn to the trio at the center of “The Story of Roots.”

Remember the rabbit-shaped lamp that hid cruelty behind its cuteness? This time, it’s a teddy bear. If Cursed Bunny translated the compressed history of Korean capitalism into the language of horror, Cho Yeeun’s Teddy Bears Never Die opens the door to another world of urban legends, a genre rooted in modern Korean oral traditions. Set in a redevelopment district simmering with greed and desire, the novel follows a protagonist caught up in a revenge plot alongside a teddy bear companion as they navigate this uncanny world together. The teddy bear, a recurring motif in Cho’s horror fiction, represents the element of fantasy embedded in horror.

If Almond is the story of a boy who grows through encounters with others after losing his family, Kim Ae-ran’s A Lie Among Truths also centers on three children living through different forms of separation from their families. A self-introduction game created by their homeroom teacher teaches them that lies can become a detour toward the truth. Through relationships with their peers, as well as bonds with animals like a lizard and a pet dog, the children gradually come to define themselves and expand their worlds. The novel offers comfort in the realization that the relationships that help us grow do not always have to come from family

Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop has three core elements: a place of one’s own, the people who gather there, and the consolation found in their stories. Park Ji-young’s Lonely Death Workshop is much heavier in tone, but it shares the omnibus structure common to many Korean healing novels. So why not pick it up with a light heart and an open mind? The novel also has three elements: a late-night coin laundry, the people who gather for a workshop on lonely deaths, and their unflinching confrontation with solitude. As you follow the stories of people rehearsing their own isolated deaths, you may discover a different kind of comfort within the depths of their loneliness.

A Thousand Blues tells a story of friendship that transcends species boundaries, bringing together a robot jockey, a racehorse, and a human girl. Ye Soyeon’s Cat and Sisters of the Desert likewise explores a three-way relationship among robots, animals, and humans. The novel follows mercenaries abandoned in the desert after the military dissolution of the military, alongside a robot cat and a real cat, as they slowly build trust in one another in a near-future world shaped by disaster. Will the solidarity they create ultimately save them? The answer to that question is something readers should discover for themselves. What the novel does show, however, is the furthest reach of what friendship can achieve.

Written by An Seohyeon

She writes literary criticisms and studies literary history. She began her career after winning the New Writer’s Award in the criticism category from the monthly literary magazine Literature and Thought in 2010. She is currently a professor at the Institute of General Studies and Education at Hongik University.

Translated by Stella Haena Kim

Stella Kim is the recipient of the 2014 LTI Korea Award for Aspiring Translators and the 2016 Korea Times' Modern Korean Literature Translation Award, as well as multiple LTI translation grants and an Academy of Korean Studies grant. She has translated a number of short stories by authors including Gu Byeong-mo, Kang Hwa-Gil, Lee Kiho, Lee Jangwook, and Kim Seong Joong. Her book-length translations include Launch Something! by Bae Myung-hoon (2022, Honford Star) and Painter of the Wind by Lee Jung-myung (co-translated, 2023, Harriett Press). Her translations have appeared in Asymptote, Asia Literary Review, and Korean Literature Now. She currently works as a freelance translator and interpreter while teaching translation at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.

Which Work of Korean Literature Should You Read Next? scrap download

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