These eight novels by Korean women writers are a must-read and intro to Korean feminist lit.

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

Korea has always had a special place in my heart as an adult. In 2018, I received a prestigious US government scholarship to live and study at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, and it was there I built up my basic Korean proficiency in a way that led me to later go back, six years after this first time, on a different government scholarship to Pusan National University.

I did fall out of Korean studies for several years, but rediscovered it as a graduate student. I was taking a class on settler colonialism and I ended up doing my research on the Japanese settler colonialism and cultural genocide that was happening in Korea, which later became my master’s thesis. I expanded it to look at Korean women writers specifically during this period and using a code analysis to see how their word choice (translated into English) resisted or conformed to the attitudes at this time.

I ended up putting this on the website for an accessible way to get to this information, so go check it out if you have the chance! The bibliography is where all of my sources and research came from, and the breakdowns/analysis of the coding in this language the women writers were using. In the a perfect near future I’ll look at the Korean side of things and how the language analysis shifts by language, but for now this is the extent of what I’ve done.

This blog has also been a place to document all of the literature I’ve read in translation from Korea. I have some books I’ve picked up throughout the years in Korean, but I haven’t been reviewing them, only the ones in English. I’ve mainly read books by women from the region, and have been documenting this process on my blog for a while.

I decided to make this blog post to focus on some of my personal favorites and must-reads from Korean women writers. This is in no way a comprehensive list, as that would be a very long article. I think one day I’ll definitely be expanding on this post, as it’s so important to center women’s stories in a male dominated world.

Let’s get into the list! I don’t want the introduction to be too long, as this post is going to be on the longer side as well.

We Do Not Part by Han Kang

When it comes to lists like these and Han Kang as an author, I think most people are going to expecting her novel The Vegetarian. I do recommend that book, as it’s the one that brought her acclaim in the English speaking world and the West, but We Do Not Part is a brilliant novel that has stuck with me ever since I read it.

Its main character Kyungha randomly receives a call one day: her artist friend had an accident and is in the hospital. When Kyungha goes to visit her, her friend, Inseon, tells Kyungha she needs to go to her home on Jeju Island and save her pet bird. The bird is in there by itself, and Kyungha, despite her best judgement, flies out to the island in the middle of a snowstorm.

As she treks to Inseon’s home, she has to grapple with the resounding trauma that lives in Inseon’s family and the island itself. For those who don’t know: Jeju Island was the site of mass cleansing and genocide right before the Korean War, as the Korean government at the time accused Jeju citizens of being in cahoots with Communists. This led to a horrific series of events that were partially aided by the United States, and, as we see in this novel, left a lifetime of trauma for those who lived to tell the tale of the massacres.

Miss Kim Knows by Cho Nam-joo

Like Han Kang, Cho Nam-joo is best known for her novel Kim Ji-young, Born 1982, which was turned into a movie starring the actor Gong Yoo (even causal Korean drama fans will recognize him). However, a collection of short stories by Cho Nam-joo is equally as good as her novel: Miss Kim Knows.

There are eight stories and perspectives depicted throughout this collection, but there’s a common theme throughout: they’re all about women. This collection is very much about the struggles women in Korea have to go through in their daily lives, especially as they exist as they are.

Old and young, the characters in this collection have quite a bit to sort through compared to their male counterparts when it comes to gender discrimination and violence. I found this collection to be quite striking throughout, making it quite memorable in the way it was written.

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung

This is another short story collection, and its author, Bora Chung, has had several novels and collections translated into English now. I would say she is one of the most accessible Korean authors nowadays to get in American bookstores (which is my frame of reference), as there is support and an appetite for her work.

Cursed Bunny started all of that. This is a collection of short stories inspired by Slavic literature, and it has a horror, supernatural, and fantasy slant throughout its narratives. But don’t be fooled: there’s a reason why Chung is using this framework to tell these stories.

From a woman confronting a version of herself in a toilet to body horror for what women have to go through to have children, there are subtle and direct critiques of the patriarchal systems women are subjected to throughout their lifetimes.

Human Acts by Han Kang

I couldn’t help but to include two Han Kang books on this list because I think she’s such a brilliant writer, but also because the writing she does is critical for contemporary Korean literature. For so long some of the stories she’s telling were buried underneath propaganda and forcibly silenced by the Korean government, including the tales contained within Human Acts.

This is a story about the Gwangju Massacre, which was a horrible event that happened in the city of Gwangju while Korea was still under a dictatorship. Kang lays out the events of the massacre beginning with the death of a student who went out while the protests were unfolding, as well as the ripple effect his and so many other people’s deaths created.

Human Acts can be such an incredibly difficult book to read because of its subject matter, but it’s brave and tense, something that documents what happened before anyone else can wipe it out.

No One Writes Back by Jang Eun-jin

For the longest time, I’ve been slowly but surely collecting books from the Library of Korean Literature. They can be a bit tricky t find sometimes, as some are out of print, but No One Writes Back has been one of my favorite books I’ve picked up from this series throughout the years.

In this novel, the main protagonist sets out on a journey only accompanied by his dog. Wherever he goes throughout Korea, he sends letters to the people he left behind, only for him not get a response as he continues onward. Somewhere along the way, he meets someone who becomes a temporary companion, easing the loneliness he suffers from despite waiting eagerly for a response to his letters.

This is just such a beautifully written novel, and I was flying through it when I read it. It’s definitely a book for those who love craft.

Can’t I Go Instead? by Lee Geum-yi

Can’t I Go Instead? is the only book I’ve included on this list that is set during the colonial period, which is interesting to me considering how books are starting to revisit this period with a nationalistic pride of what it means to resist and be Korean. We’ve definitely seen that a lot in Korean television and movies—they’re reclaiming the narrative in a nationalistic way.

This book is about two young women with completely diverging paths. We see their perspectives splitting, but at first they meet as members of two social classes. One is a the daughter of a Korean nobleman, the other becomes her servant. But when the wealthier girl is arrested for associating with Korean resistance members, her servant is sent in her place to become a comfort woman.

This changes the trajectory of both of their lives, which we see throughout the course of the novel.

Shoko’s Smile by Choi Eun-young

I remember this book was getting a lot of traction originally when it came out because a Korean pop idol was spotted reading it, but this was one of those books I randomly found in my local library branch, had no idea existed, and then read it because it sounded interesting. This is another short story collection, which is rare for me—I usually try not to read too many short story collections unless I’m in the mood.

Anyways, Shoko’s Smile is similar to Miss Kim Knows because it focuses on the stories of women, including young girls and older women. Two stories that really stood out to me include an exchange student living with a family and the relationship the family’s daughter forms with the student, and the story about the teacher who died in the Sewol accident and how her grandmother isn’t told that she died in order to protect her.

All of these stories are very compelling to me, making this such an interesting read if you’re interested in women’s stories.

I’ll Be Right There by Shin Kyung-sook

The final book in this list is one I’ve had in my collection for about ten years now: I’ll Be Right There by Shin Kyung-sook. Most people reference one of her other novels, Please Look After Mom, but if you want to learn a lot about a specific moment in Korean history, this is the book for you.

This is a reflection by an older woman on her twenties and life in Korea during the 1980s, which, as I mentioned earlier, was a turbulent period. Korea is a relatively new democracy, despite what people think about the region in general. The book opens with the death of someone who was once important to the narrator, leading her to reflect on how chaotic this moment of her life was in the 80s, as well as how she had major life changes during this time as well.

It’s very well written, and it reminds me a bit of a movie. I’m surprised it hasn’t been adapted for the screen after all of these years.

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