Category: Literature

 

Young adult literature is rapidly becoming one of the most popular genres in publishing today. Also increasingly visible are YA novels featuring Asian American and Pacific Islander characters at the forefront, providing insight into the expectations and identity issues many members of the AAPI community experience and offering a unique perspective on these universal themes.

Catherine Hong will moderate a discussion between YA authors Claire Ahn and Kat Cho about their latest books, the growing popularity of YA novels with Korean and Korean-American characters, and the shifting views surrounding Asian-American YA novels among both readers and the publishing industry.

 

Writing YA Novels with Claire Ahn and Kat Cho

Wednesday, May 28, 2025 | 6:30 PM (EDT)

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

 

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About the Speakers:

Claire Ahn is the author of I Guess I Live Here Now and Bad Influence. She grew up in Seoul, Korea, and still considers it home. She moved to New York to attend university and now lives in Long Island City with her husband, daughter, and their dog, Dante. She writes about transcultural experiences and the traditions, values, and legacies that shape who we are.

Kat Cho is a New York Times and international bestselling author of Young Adult fiction. She received her BA in Biology from Wesleyan University and MPH in Community Education from CUNY Hunter in her past life as a clinical researcher. She advocates for equity and representation in publishing and media through her work with non-profits such as Diverse Voices Inc. ​Kat and her books have been featured in Entertainment Weekly, NBC.com, Refinery 29, and Seventeen. Her books include the Penguin One World One Book 2019 Selection, Wicked Fox, its international bestselling sequel, Vicious Spirits, and the NYT Bestselling Once Upon a K-Prom. Her latest book is Wish Upon a K-Star.

 

About the Moderator:

Catherine Hong is a journalist and children’s book critic who contributes to The New York Times, Architectural Digest and Oprah Daily, among other publications. Previously, she was an editor at W magazine and co-host of K-Pod, a podcast about Korean Americans in arts and culture produced by KoreanAmericanStory.org.

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Author Photo: Nara Shin

Prepare for the thrilling and highly anticipated conclusion to the instant New York Times bestselling book from Korea, which was named a Cosmopolitan Best Young Adult Book of the Year and a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year. Promising even more dark secrets and shocking surprises, Snowglobe 2 sinks deeper into Chobahm’s frozen world, where the only truth that matters is the story that’s being told.

In a time when constant winter reigns, the climate-controlled city of Snowglobe offers a deceptive haven of warmth and safety. Snowglobe 2 plunges readers back into this society, where Chobahm must navigate a labyrinth of lies and danger. The illusions aired on TV, crafted by the Yibonn Media Group, were designed to placate and control the population, and as Chobahm uncovers the dark secrets behind this utopian facade, she is framed for murder and must work with an unlikely ally to clear her name. Delving deeply into the intricate themes of political turmoil, the pervasive power of media-driven misinformation, and the delicate balance of personal privacy in an era where every aspect of life is broadcast online, this sequel will have readers gripping their books with every twist and revelation.

In this episode of Author Talks, Soyoung Park discusses the English translation of her duology.

 

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Author Talks: Soyoung Park

Tuesday, May 6, 2025

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

 

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Author Talks: Lee Chang-dong

Author Photo: Oh Jung-mi

“Lee Chang-dong is a master storyteller of any form. This collection of his early works gives a deep, stark look at human stories from a Korea not too long ago. A gift to read.” —Steven Yeun, Academy Award nominee for Best Actor

Lee Chang-dong is one of South Korea’s most celebrated and influential directors. Known internationally for his films Burning, Secret Sunshine, and Poetry, Lee’s work is characterized by his meticulous eye for detail and his exploration of social issues and complex characters. Before turning to screenwriting and directing, Lee began his career as a writer of short fiction and novels. SNOWY DAY AND OTHER STORIES, translated into English for the first time by Yoosup Chang and Heinz Insu Fenkl, is a brilliant and unsettling collection that investigates themes of love, injustice, betrayal, and terror—on both an intimate and national scale.

Originally published in Korea in the 1980s, and drawn from the author’s own experiences, the stories in SNOWY DAY AND OTHER STORIES are haunting and deeply moving. As he does in his films, Lee dives deep into the mundane and the quiet, revealing our collective underlying pain, loneliness, and profound longing. In stunning prose, Lee moves swiftly between explorations of conflicts between family and memory, the powerful and the vulnerable, the rich and the poor, and conformists and rebels. The stories are visceral, contemplative, and thought-provoking. How is family memory preserved? How does danger and violence reverberate across generations?

In this episode of Author Talks, Lee Chang-dong discusses the English translation of his short stories.

 

Author Talks: Lee Chang-dong

Thursday, February 27, 2025

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

 

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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 as pottery itself, this shimmering work of comfort fiction shows that there is bravery in seeking peace, slowing down, and reawakening the creativity that makes us feel most alive.

Jungmin is thirty years old, alone, and completely at a loss for what to do with her life. She quits the TV news writing job that burns her out, but the months afterward, holed up in her barren apartment, hardly make things better. One day, her emotions boiling over, she runs out of her house screaming, and stumbles upon a new world: a neighborhood pottery studio with a kindhearted teacher she didn’t know she needed. Soyo Workshop colors Jungmin’s life with purpose and community, tools to help her heal. In the center of this newfound delight is Gisik, a magnetic new friend whose relationship just so happens to be falling apart. The soothing environment of the studio makes her feel enormously comfortable, but she can’t help but wonder if it might be worth it to disrupt her newfound peace.

In this episode of Author Talks, the author discusses her English debut.

 

 

Author Talks: Yeon Somin

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

 

 

 

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About the Speaker:

Yeon Somin is a rising literary talent in Korea who has made her mark in both literary and television writing. She has received multiple accolades for her writing since her career as a novelist took off in 2022, when she received the prestigious Korea New Writers Award for her debut work, Lazy Kinko. Yeon is an active contributor to the Brunch writing community and has worked as a freelance television writer for major networks, including SBS, MBC, and YTN. During her free time, she finds solace in the art of pottery. The Healing Season of Pottery is her second novel, and her first to be translated around the world.

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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 million lives in search of them. One night, she brings the Marigold Mind Laundry into existence. Its service: to remove the deepest pain from our hearts. Jieun listens while customers share their unhappy memories. As they speak, she transfers their sadness onto T-shirts as stains. After a spin in the washing machine, the stains become flower petals that soar into the air, and Jieun’s customers find solace. And as Jieun listens to her customers’ stories, she learns that the will to heal is not a rare gift, but a power we all possess—if only we are open to it.

Joyous and inspiring, Marigold Mind Laundry, offers wonderment and comfort as it teaches us to tap into the magic that lives within us all.

In this episode of Author Talks, the author Jungeun Yun and translator Shanna Tan discuss the English publication of Marigold Mind Laundry.

 

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Author Talks: Jungeun Yun & Shanna Tan

Friday, November 1, 2024

 

 

 

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About the Speakers:

Jungeun Yun is the author of more than ten books, including Live the Way You Want, Even If I Don’t Know How to Be an Adult and To Travel or To Love; and she hosts a podcast The Path of Books with Jungeun Yun. Her debut novel Marigold Mind Laundry was the No. 1 bestselling novel in Korea in 2023 and is due to be published in over 20 countries. Jungeun Yun lives in Korea.

Shanna Tan is a Singaporean translator working from Korean, Chinese and Japanese. Her translations include Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum and Yeonnam-dong’s Smiley Laundromat by Kim Jiyun.

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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 contemporary Seoul in all of its glory and turmoil, and this daringly irreverent novel is a poignant meditation on modern life in a city beset by North Korea’s shadow.

A psychologist with a savior complex offers shelter to a recently canceled K-pop idol in this “first great K-pop literary phenomenon” (Debutiful), The Band is a first novel from the cultural psychologist Christine Ma-Kellams. In its “gripping exploration of the complexities that accompany fame” (Booklist), The Band considers the many ways in which love and celebrity can devolve into something far more sinister.

Part of Town Hall’s “K-Town Hall Series,” each ticket includes a copy of Spring On the Peninsula and The Band.

 

Click Here to Purchase the Tickets

 

The Other Korea: Stories from the Diaspora

Saturday, October 12, 2024 | 3 PM (EDT)

 

The Town Hall Lounge
123 West 43rd Street
(Between 6th Ave and Broadway)
New York, NY 10036

 

 

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About the Speakers:

Ery Shin was born in Ames, Iowa in 1986. She was raised in Manhattan for the first decade of her life, then Seoul for the second. She received a bachelor’s degree in English from Princeton University and a doctorate in the same discipline from the University of Oxford. The author of Gertrude Stein’s Surrealist Years, a study of Stein’s later experimental gestures and their philosophical implications within Hitler’s Europe, she is currently an assistant professor of English at the University of Southern Mississippi. Spring on the Peninsula is her debut novel. Christine Ma-Kellams is a Harvard-trained cultural psychologist, Pushcart-nominated fiction writer, and first-generation American. Her work and writing have appeared in HuffPost, Chicago Tribune, Catapult, Salon, The Wall Street Journal, the Rumpus, and many more publications. The Band is her first novel.

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“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 and lyrically exciting, interweaving four complex yet entertaining stories as they shape and create a nation’s literary narrative through the themes of love and grief.

Famous for his dispelling of the national myth, a history professor understands the power of narrative. He has inspired another young professor to search for her own truths, while trying to understand the way fiction creates fact and how sometimes the past can only be understood by filling in holes with a new narrative. Which is exactly what he needs when his wife passes away to parse meaning out of a world that no longer makes sense.

Together the protégé and the Historian find comfort in each other. Yet they know their time together is fleeting, as time usually is. Only the gods have an abundance of time, and yet—the two discover—even that might not be so clear cut. Part of their homeland’s myth tells of four gods who squabbled and argued and destroyed and rebuilt time and again. Or did they?

Spanning 3,000 years and multiple voices—with tales within tales woven expertly together—The Melancholy of Untold History reveals people who seek to confront the hardships of life through storytelling. Mixing the East Asian mythos with a postmodern approach to standard sci-fi/fantasy narrative tropes, Minsoo Kang has created a challenging, beautiful, sad, humorous, and ultimately unforgettable novel of love, grief, and myth-making.

Minsoo Kang discusses his debut novel with Ed Lin.

During the event, The Melancholy of Untold History will be available for purchase.

 

Minsoo Kang: The Melancholy of Untold History with Ed Lin

Wednesday, July 24, 2024 | 6:30 PM (EDT)

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

 

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About the Speaker:

Minsoo Kang is a historian, fiction writer, and translator, currently a professor of history at the University of Missouri – Saint Louis.  He is author of the history book Sublime Dreams of Living Machines: The Automaton in the European Imagination, the short story collection Of Tales and Enigmas, and the Penguin Classics translation of the Joseon dynasty novel The Story of Hong Gildong.  The Melancholy of Untold History is his debut novel.

 

About the Moderator:

Ed Lin, a native New Yorker of Taiwanese and Chinese descent, is the first author to win three Asian American Literary Awards. His books include his first novel Waylaid, and a trilogy of mysteries set in Manhattan’s Chinatown in 1976. His current mystery series is set in Taipei, and the latest of which, Death Doesn’t Forget, was published by Soho Crime in 2022. His YA debut, David Tung Can’t Have a Girlfriend Until He Gets Into an Ivy League College, was published by Kaya Press in 2020. Lin lives in Brooklyn with his wife, actress Cindy Cheung, and son.

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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 bestselling author of H is for Hawk

A daughter of Korean immigrants, Hyeseung Song spends her earliest years in the cane fields of Texas where her loyalties are divided between a restless father in search of Big Money, and a beautiful yet domineering mother whose resentments about her own life compromises her relationship with her daughter. With her parents at constant odds, Song learns more words in Korean for hatred than for love. When the family’s fake Gucci business lands them in bankruptcy, Song moves to a new elementary school. On her first day, a girl asks the teacher: “Can she speak English?”

Neither rich nor white, Song does what is necessary to be visible: she internalizes the model minority myth as well as her beloved mother’s dreams to see her on a secure path. Song meets these expectations by attending the best Ivy League universities in the country. But when she wavers, in search of an artistic life on her own terms, her mother warns, “Happiness is what unexceptional people tell themselves when they don’t have the talent and drive to go after real success.” Years of self-erasure take a toll and Song experiences recurring episodes of depression and mania.

So begins her sweeping journey to heal herself by losing everything. In her extraordinary debut memoir Docile: Memoirs of a Not-So-Perfect Asian Girl, Song expertly weaves together the beauty and complexity of her experience. It is an immigrant story, but also a mother-daughter story, a mental health story, and ultimately a redemption story. Poetic and unflinching, Docile is a lesson in the power of love and legacy to shape us and finding the bravery to be our authentic selves in spite of the expectations we carry.

In a conversation with Emma Eun-joo Choi, Song discusses her memoir.

Docile: Memoirs of a Not-So-Perfect Asian Girl will be available for purchase.

 

Hyeseung Song: Docile with Emma Eun-joo Choi

Thursday, July 18, 2024 6:30 PM (EDT)

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

 

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About the Speaker:

Hyeseung Song is a first-generation Korean American writer and painter. She lives in Brooklyn and upstate New York.

 

About the Moderator:

Emma Eun-joo Choi is a writer, comic, and “journalist.” She is a producer, writer, social media head, and New York City correspondent at NPR’s flagship trivia/comedy/news show Wait… Wait… Don’t Tell Me! From 2022 to 2023, she was the host of its spinoff podcast Everyone & Their Mom, where she interviewed everybody from celebrities to asparagus psychics to her own mother, and regularly records segmented out in the field. She is the youngest ever NPR program host. Equal parts comedian and fiction writer, her short stories have appeared both online and in print and her plays have been produced professionally at DC Fringe. Her fiction falls between the genres of horror and magical realism and is often deeply sad. She is currently working on a novel about a haunted house.

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