THE KOREA SOCIETY

is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) organization with individual and corporate members that is dedicated solely to the promotion of greater awareness, understanding, and cooperation between the people of the United States and Korea. Learn more about us here.

Literature

Author Talks: Yeon Somin

Tuesday, November 12, 2024 | 5:00 PM
Author photo credit: © Han Sehee Rising Korean literary star Yeon Somin makes her English-language debut with The Healing Season of Pottery, a feel-good story about a young woman finding solace and a sense of self through art. The winner of the prestigious Korea New Writers Award (for Lazy Kinko), Yeon’s latest, translated by the award-winning Clare Richards, is being published in eighteen countries. As elegantly molded and deeply satisfying… Read More

Author Talks: Jungeun Yun & Shanna Tan

Friday, November 1, 2024 | 12:00 PM
Welcome to Marigold Mind Laundry, where we wash away the stains from your heart. In this enchanting tale—a blockbuster bestseller in Korea—the enigmatic owner of a magical laundromat that erases people’s painful memories must learn to find her own peace before she can truly help others. Born with mysterious powers she does not know how to control, young Jieun accidentally causes her family to vanish. She vows to live a… Read More

The Other Korea: Stories from the Diaspora

Saturday, October 12, 2024 | 3:00 PM
Join authors Ery Shin (Spring On the Peninsula) and Christine Ma-Kellams (The Band) as they discuss their books and stories from the Korean diaspora. Longlisted for the 2024 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, Spring On the Peninsula is Ery Shin's debut novel about a desultory libertine who mourns a failed relationship over the course of two harsh winters. In this unprecedented portrait of millennials living in Seoul, Shin captures… Read More
"With his quietly magical debut, Kang delivers a book that only a history professor such as himself could write. The novel switches between a profoundly personal story of loss and a grand, mythic epic, poking at the varied ethics and aims of historicism as it goes."— Bustle A beautifully crafted, enriching saga inspired by East Asian mythology, The Melancholy of Untold History is Minsoo Kang’s debut novel, steeped in history… Read More

Hyeseung Song: Docile with Emma Eun-joo Choi

Thursday, July 18, 2024 | 6:30 PM
Author Photo: Jack Sorokin “Docile is the rarest of things: a scorchingly honest, beautiful, hugely evocative memoir that’s also a proper pageturner: I read it breathlessly in a single sitting, transported and deeply moved. It's at one and the same time the story of a life and a meditation on identity, family, trauma, illness, and the nature of love, art, and success. It’s wonderful.” — Helen Macdonald, New York Times… Read More

Author Talks: Miye Lee

Tuesday, July 9, 2024 | 5:00 PM
* Indies Introduce Pick for Summer 2024 “This delightful story transcends…..A comforting story of dreams, lives, and the ways people process all that reality offers them.”—Kirkus Review What if there was a store that sold dreams? Which would you buy? And who might you become when you wake up? A captivating story that will leave a lingering magical feeling in readers' minds, Miye Lee's The Dallergut Dream Department Store is… Read More
Is the short story a fiction writer’s laboratory where you can experiment with characters, plots, and ideas? or is it an art form of its own, telling a complete story in just a few words? What does a short story need to have in order to be successful that is different from a novel? And what makes the writers return to this form of writing again and again? Join us… Read More

June Hur: A Crane Among Wolves with Ellen Oh

Monday, May 13, 2024 | 6:00 PM
Author Photo: © Julie Anna Tang | "Award-winner Hur’s latest historical intrigue is well researched and doesn’t shy away from depicting elements of this real king’s brutal history, and the resulting tale is immersive, intense, and engaging. A page-turner." —Kirkus Reviews To save her sister, a teen girl becomes entangled in a political conspiracy with an enigmatic prince in this fiery new YA novel. June Hur, bestselling author of The… Read More

Author Talks: Park Seolyeon

Tuesday, April 30, 2024 | 5:00 PM
Author Photo: Studio Gaga A millennial turned magical girl must combat climate change and credit card debt in A Magical Girl Retires, a delightful, witty, and wildly imaginative ode to magical girl manga by Park Seolyeon. Our protagonist is a normal girl; that is, a 29-year-old millennial woman drowning in credit card debt and unable to find a job after the pandemic rendered her unemployed. She has no family left,… Read More

Author Talks: Yun Ko-eun with Lizzie Buehler

Tuesday, April 16, 2024 | 5:00 PM
"Weirdly wonderful and wonderfully weird."— Kirkus Reviews In the first short-story collection of hers to be translated into and published in English, South Korean author Yun Ko-eun conjures up slightly off-kilter worlds tucked away in the corners of everyday life. Table for One is bursting with images that toe the line between realism and the fantastic, comedy and an element of the surreal, interwoven with the hopelessness and loneliness that… Read More
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