Ask anyone with at least one eye on the translation of world literature which countries are publishing the most innovative novels, and they’ll probably mention South Korea.
Korean novels frequently bend and break genres, explore often untouched social and political themes, and speak to our very souls.
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featured Korean novels translated
If you’re looking for the best Korean novels translated into English, this top ten list is the perfect place to start.
many of the Korean authors (and translators) mentioned here have entire libraries available for you to explore once you’ve exhausted this list.
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A note on names: In Korea, last names come first, and publishers of translated Korean novels often seem to disagree on whether or not to turn them around for English readers. some do, some don’t. you get used to it.
kim jiyoung, born in 1982 to cho nam-joo
translated by jamie chang
tackling a book like kim jiyoung, born 1982 is a huge undertaking; something that should be done with real consideration.
The novel has sold over a million copies in its native South Korea, has been adapted into a successful Korean film, and has been a major spark for the fire of the #metoo movement in South Korea.
kim jiyoung, born 1982 is a novel that has accomplished so much, done so much good, and is now finally available to English-speaking readers.
even knowing where to start reviewing it is a test. this book is important. really matters.
kim jiyoung, born in 1982, can be seen as the novelization of the experiences lived by all ordinary Korean women during the last forty years. follows the life of a single woman from early childhood through marriage and motherhood.
The book begins with him being given an appointment with a psychiatrist in 2016 after developing a disturbing condition where he impersonates the voices and embodies the personalities of the women in his life, both living and dead.
This condition is what initially introduces us to her character, and it is a very clear statement to the reader that Kim Jiyoung speaks for all ordinary women of the 20th and 21st centuries in South Korea.
everything you may have heard about kim jiyoung, born in 1982 as a shocking and important work of feminist fiction, is true.
is a book that exposes the everyday misogyny, sexism, ignorance, aggression, prejudice and abuse (both active and passive) that south korean women (and of course , of all the world). better to survive in this modern world.
In order to take full advantage of Kim Jiyoung, born in 1982, one of the most powerful Korean novels, it is important to first understand the purpose of the novel.
It is not a story with a view to entertain us. it is a book that illuminates and encourages the anger of its readers. kim jiyoung is not an individual.
She’s not a character to bond with. she’s all a victim of abuse. she is every woman who has encountered sexism at home, at school, in the workplace, and on the street, and may not have even realized it.
love in the big city of sang young park
translated by anton hur
love in the big city is a strange Korean love story. it is a story of hedonism and friendship; a book about looking at life from all angles: with love, hate, anger and fear in our eyes.
Split into four acts, love in the big city begins with a young man in college, living his best life with a close friend, jaehee.
the two live together, have a lot of fun, sleep and take care of each other. but eventually jaehee wants to get married and grow up.
The second act of this Korean novel explores the young man’s relationship with his mother, now and in the past, and the third act sees him chasing love, finding it, disappointed in it, and finding it again.
translated with elegance and beauty by anton hur, love in the big city considers how we live our lives when time is ticking, when there is fun to be had and things to see; when there are things to fear and people who want to harm us.
this is also a novel full of charming details. young and jaehee, in their early days, take care of each other.
He keeps her full of Marlboro cigarettes and she keeps the fridge full of fruit (blueberries are her favorite).
Not all these details are positive: the novel does not shy away from moments of pain, fear and difficulty. the young man encounters homophobia and his relationship with his mother is tense in more ways than one.
love in the big city paints a raw and honest but ultimately kind picture of love and life today, making it one of the best modern Korean novels.
kyung-sook shin violets
translated by anton hur
kyung-sook shin is one of south korea’s most loved and revered authors. a violet reading and it’s easy to see why.
This is a feminist story about friendship in the modern world and the subtle and insidious ways men abuse women on a daily basis.
One of the most powerful and life-changing Korean novels in recent years, Violets begins with its protagonist, San, as a young girl in 1970. She lives in a small town and is a lonely social outcast.
In the opening chapter, san shares a moment of tender intimacy with her best friend. For San, this is an awakening. for her friend, it’s scary and it’s wrong.
they don’t see each other again and we spend the rest of the novel with san as a twentysomething living in seoul.
When san takes a job as a florist, she develops a sweet friendship with her co-worker, who soon moves in with her. but san is also at the whim of men.
learn how men violate women’s spaces and bodies on a daily basis, in a way that seems almost invisible.
violets has the power to reshape the way we all view the social dynamics at play between men and women.
the physical and verbal weapons that men gently use to scare, suppress and intimidate the women in their lives. It is a novel that leaves its mark, but also a tender and beautiful narrative.
watch our full video review of violets
I want to die but I want to eat baek sehee’s tteokbokki
In her introduction to this amazing book, author baek sehee notes that she hopes people read this book and think, “I wasn’t the only person who felt this way.”
In that sense, I want to die but I want to eat tteokbokki is an exercise in empathy; in the author opening her chest and letting out her darkest feelings, hoping that you feel understood.
Depression is isolating, frightening and exhausting. knowing that there is someone else who has felt this way, who still feels this way, can be incredibly comforting.
I want to die but I want to eat tteokbokki is unique among these other Korean novels in that it is not actually a novel, but rather a kind of epistolary narrative that traces a woman’s life through therapy.
Most chapters begin and/or end with a confession: a personal experience or feeling related to the author’s depression and anxieties. the rest of the chapter is a transcript of a therapy session.
These sessions divulge personal experiences and opinions, as well as provide advice and insight from the therapist as they listen to the author’s experiences.
It feels very voyeuristic, getting to know this author’s inner thoughts and feelings so intimately, but the sense of camaraderie that comes from it all is greatly appreciated.
Writing something so revealing and honest must have required incredible courage, but baek sehee has done it out of a selfless desire to help others feel less alone and unique in their pain.
if you struggle with depression, or know someone who suffers from it, I want to die but I want to eat tteokbokki is a lesson in empathy and a hug from a fellow sufferer.
the conspirators by un-su kim
translated by sora kim-russell
The most important thing to note about The Conspirators is that it is presented as a thriller, but in reality it is much more than that.
Instead of mixing genders and emerging as some sort of monster of different Frankenstein styles, the conspirators refuse to acknowledge gender.
That’s what sets this book apart and gives you the opportunity to wow your readers chapter after chapter.
the plotters tells the story of reseng, a successful assassin raised in the doghouse library, a library full of books but empty of people, somewhere in seoul, by an enigmatic old man known as old raccoon.
reseng has grown up knowing nothing more than the business of assassination and, strangely enough, knowing very little about it as well.
This is a penetrating piece of fiction driven by its eccentric yet down-to-earth characters, providing a unique and entertaining setting and circumstance, and telling a story subtly tied to the history and politics of modern Korea. .
After the Korean War and the separation of the two Koreas along the 38th parallel, the Kim regime took control of North Korea.
What is less well known, however, is that South Korea also had no democratic freedom until the 1980s, suffering from martial law for a few decades.
This key aspect of Korean history plays into the history of the conspirators, as democratization creates a power struggle between assassins and leaves room for a different kind of man to take charge.
Combining this wacky and wonderful story of assassins working out of an old library with real-world political events allows for some subtle commentary on the nature of fascism, martial law, democracy, and even capitalism, in regards to how these affect stuff. the kind of life that people can lead. even assassins are not immune to political changes.
The Conspirators is one of the most ambitious Korean novels; Something you have to read to believe. his ability to defy the genre, allow the plot to get carried away by comedy and eccentric characters, and maintain a slow pace that takes its time without losing an ounce of momentum, is truly amazing.
takes influence from the tumultuous events of South Korea’s recent past without becoming dry and brooding. most important of all, it’s fantastically fun.
tower by bae myung-hoon
translated by sung ryu
tower is a truly unique and boundary-pushing Korean sci-fi. when we look at translated Korean novels, very few are genre fiction. but that is slowly changing, and tower is a korean book you must learn and read.
As the name suggests, this Korean sci-fi piece is set entirely in a huge tower. this titular tower is a nation unto itself, home to 500,000 people.
bae implies that it was built on Korean soil, but this is never explicitly stated.
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The book is divided into a series of interconnected speculative tales, all set within this lonely tower of a nation known as beanstalk.
The world building is fantastic as the tower needs to be a believable place for the author’s disparate stories to work. infrastructure, economics, politics and daily life must be taken into account and designed in a way that the reader can understand and appreciate.
The six floors of the tower are linked by the place itself and by recurring characters and events. and each story serves to further build the world while telling a completely self-contained story.
In that sense, this is a unique piece of Korean fiction that combines the concepts of the novel and the short story collection.
and each story also, like all good science fiction, poses an ethical, political or philosophical dilemma for us to ponder.
i’m waiting for you for kim bo-young
translated by sung ryu and sophie bowman
With the spread of Korean science fiction in the West, thanks to the hard work of talented and dedicated translators like Ryu and Bowman, we get amazing gems like this.
I’m waiting for you is one of the best Korean novels published in recent years. here’s why.
kim bo-young is a legend of korean literature, and even worked as a script editor on oscar-winning director bong joon-ho’s snowpiercer.
With I’m Waiting For You, readers get to see firsthand why she’s such a special sci-fi author. This collection of four stories is essential reading among science fiction books by women writers.
The four stories in this collection actually function as two pairs.
The first and fourth stories, I am waiting for you and on my way to you, are the same story told from two perspectives: a bride and groom heading home to earth for their wedding ceremony.
The second and third stories, the prophet of corruption and that unique life, which are also the longest and shortest respectively, are a mixture of religion, mysticism and science fiction.
In these two middle tales, the characters are an ensemble of gods, and it is quickly revealed that they created the earth as a school in which they themselves can learn and grow.
the main character of the prophet of corruption, naban, is a single god whose prophets, disciples and children separated from him like cells. individually, they spend entire lifetimes on earth, learning, experimenting, and dying.
naban believes in asceticism as a school of learning; his children are reborn in low roles; they suffer and toil and eventually return home. But some rebel against this live-and-learn approach.
What makes these stories so tantalizingly addictive is both Kim’s world-building and her attempt to write gods as characters, with different motivations and behaviors than our own.
The stories that frame this collection are each written in an epistolary way, like letters to each other. In I’m Waiting For You, our nameless boyfriend is trying to get down to earth and is updating his girlfriend every time something goes wrong (and a lot goes wrong).
The same thing happens on my way to you, only here the bride has her own obstacles to overcome. These two stories are heartbreaking. you will support them, you will cry for them, you will hope against hope that things will work out for them.
my brilliant life by ae-ran kim
translated by chi-young kim
Adapted into a Korean movie, and now available in English translation by kyung-sook shin’s translator, Please Take Care of Mom, My Brilliant Life is a wonderful literary novel by Korean author Ae-ran Kim.
my brilliant life tells the story of areum, a sixteen year old boy with a degenerative disease. he is not likely to live much longer, given that he has the internal organs of an eighty year old man. However, before he dies, Areum has a gift that he wishes to give to his parents:
“My plan was this: write my parents’ story from scratch and give it to them on my seventeenth birthday. Instead of awards or a college diploma, I would give you this story.”
Areum’s parents were sweethearts since childhood; they had it when they themselves were only sixteen. despite being neglected, they formed a beautiful family together and areum became a gift. together they formed a perfect and loving family; something truly inspiring.
Thanks to her parents and their love, Areum has lived a wonderful life, despite its length. and he is grateful for this, so he wishes to give them one final gift that highlights and celebrates the beauty of their love and his life together.
Throughout Areum’s youth, his parents have enamored him with stories of their own lives, their younger years, and their relationship.
Use these stories to build your book. Meanwhile, as she compiles this final gift, she’s in and out of the hospital with health issues: blindness, heart failure, epilepsy, and more.
As sad as this story is, it’s still uplifting. It is a celebration of love, life and family. teaches us to be grateful to those who show us love and kindness.
reminds us that life is something to appreciate, admire and enjoy. For that reason, My Brilliant Life is one of the most moving and powerful modern Korean novels.
kyung-sook shin’s court dancer
translated by anton hur
kyung-sook shin has the gift of understanding his own people, his own society, with all its beauty and flaws; this type of gift is something that could be considered simple for anyone who is from anywhere, but that could be said to be very far from the truth. With these skills, she has written some of the best Korean novels in history.
for shin, each new novel demonstrates new strengths that he hadn’t previously revealed; new muscles that you haven’t flexed before. this time he makes historical fiction storytelling seem as easy as pouring cool, fresh water into a glass.
Based on a true story, set in late 19th century Korea, when China, Russia, and Japan threaten the small nation caught between them, The Court Dancer is first and foremost described as a love story: The romantic. story of a man and a woman from two different worlds, who collide in a moment of beauty.
And sure, that’s fine, but really this is the story of a woman born without a family, adopted into the courts of the Joseon dynasty, in love with a French diplomat, carried across the waves to foreign shores, and all while trying to find the time to understand who she is, what she is, and what she wants from a life that has never really been hers.
is a tragic story that transcends place and time to show people of all cultures that a woman’s life must be fought for.
Much of shin’s earlier writings, in translation, have allowed non-Koreans to experience and understand the modern Korean mind and heart.
with the court dancer, she has shown us the heart of pre-modern Korea with all the heart and mind that she herself always lends to her writing.
night and day untold by bae suah
translated by deborah smith
bae suah is one of the great contemporary authors from south korea. Author of some great music, nowhere to be found, and north station (some of the best Korean novels of all time), she has burst onto the stage that is 2020 with a surreal backwards story that feels uncomfortably in line with the narrative. of the 21st century.
Untold Night and Day is, to borrow the words of author Sharlene Teo, the feverish dream of a novel; a book that is unknown yet aggressively familiar to all of us.
ayami is a former actress who has worked for two years in a menial position at a small, almost completely unknown theater in seoul that presents aural performances for blind audiences.
is approaching thirty, anxious and unsure of herself in every conceivable way. she soon she also finds out that she will soon be out of a job.
What starts out as a vivid pattern, a drawing with thick black lines, begins to blur. Ayami’s own colors begin to blend, as do those of history and time itself.
reality, for us and for ayami, escapes and curls up on itself. surrealism, very soon, has us nailed and will not allow us to wake up.
There is perhaps no more apt description of the untold night and day than “fever sleep.” this parallel runs deep.
At 150 pages, the novel is short: a quick read that, like a fever dream, manages to trickily play with time and progress.
You’ll wonder how long you’ve had your head in the book before a chapter break finally allows you to take a breather. you might even walk out sweaty and confused.
The unspeakable night and day should be read with a clean and sober mind, and then talked about after a few shots of vodka. it’s a dirty and cracked narrative that encourages questions about our 21st century world and how we live in it.
The novel is indeed a dream of Lynchian fever, but it requires perseverance and total absorption.
And honestly, even if you tried to quit, the book probably wouldn’t let you. open it up and let it sink into you as you sink into it.
b, book and me by kim sagwa
translated by sunhee jeong
Coming-of-age novels and stories of self-discovery can take a variety of forms across myriad genres of fiction, but most are typically grounded in realism, following the rules of their world.
b, book, and me is a story of a different kind, grounded in a feverish dreamlike surrealism that grows in intensity over time, using ambiguity and narrative fog to reinforce the strangeness and frustration they feel. and experienced by young people year after year.
It’s an anxious, layered story that captures the dangers and mysteries of youth better than most.
the titular b, the book and I are our three protagonists: b is a teenager from a poor family who lives in an unnamed seaside town in korea; book is a friend who is on the road who has an obsession with reading and collecting books; and the ‘me’ refers to rang, our initial narrator and b’s best friend.
The novel is divided into three parts, with the first part following some clear and beautifully rendered days and memories in Rang’s life.
the second follows ab and begins to expand into a feverish surrealism that reflects his own fears, struggles and tensions. the third unites the two with the book as the walls of reality nearly come crashing down completely.
b, book, and me is one of the most creative Korean novels; does an amazing job of illustrating the often surreal and terrifying life of a teenager growing up in an unknown place, with vague notions that there is a world beyond her.
The dreamlike nature of the novel gently pours into the narrative as it progresses and serves to reinforce the plot’s themes and the nature of its characters.
Our protagonists are likeable, their motivations clear, and their world eerily understandable despite its impossible qualities.
Rarely does a novel manage to be so abstract and fluid and yet so clearly identifiable. b, book, and me is a clever, beautifully written and masterfully translated work of Korean fiction that is a terrifying yet realistic story of self-discovery and friendship.
the hole by hye-young pyun
translated by sora kim-russell
here is, perhaps, a whole new kind of fear. We’re living in a new golden age of horror movies right now and, if hye-young pyun’s books are any indication, a parallel golden age of horror writing as well.
The protagonist and narrator of the hole is the lovable oghi, from whom we learn in two ways:
in flashbacks where oghi is portrayed as a successful professor and academic in a falling apart marriage.
This provides the disparity between Oghi’s successes and his wife’s failures, causing an awkward rift between them.
and today. We meet Oghi after a car accident that leaves him unable to move or even speak, he only communicates with blinking eyes and a strange movement of his left hand.
with these contrasting oghis, memories of him confident, sometimes callous, versus the present in which he is mute and all voices condescending, create an immediately unsettling paradigm shift.
The reader will find that, after each flashback ends, a kind of anti-catharsis sets in as we remember that Oghi is currently a prisoner in his own body; a narrator who cannot narrate. this is the first terror in history.
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The other terror comes in the form of Oghi’s mother-in-law, both his caretaker and the only remaining member of the family.
After losing her daughter in the same accident that left oghi paralyzed, his mother-in-law is hardly an emotionally stable caregiver. to say more would be to risk spoiling things.
where the hole shines, and where its true terror lies, is the state of oghi’s body and mind. Much of horror and suspense writing is about running, hiding, chasing, and getting lost.
but oghi is not lost and cannot run. you’re stuck from the first page.
By choosing to ignore the tropes that make horror what it is famous for, pyun has created a very new kind of horror that is based on the writing of franz kafka, but without the black humor that comes from watching fixed to the null.
Instead, it replaces it with true and utter dread that lingers like an achingly prolonged musical note for hours, page after page after page.
the hole is one of my favorite Korean novels, as well as one of my favorite horror novels.
the white book of han kang
translated by deborah smith
Calling it the white paper feels reductive, almost wrong on purpose. because the white paper is less of a book and more of an enveloping feeling of familiarity.
This book, one of the best Korean novels of our time, is something you live and feel, and all of this is created through the use of empty space.
han kang has created a story unlike any you’ve ever read, but beyond being a story, it’s very much an exploration of the familiar things in life.
There are beautiful black and white photos throughout the book, taken by Han Kang, which only add to the experience as you try to deal with the tone of each beautiful image.
the white paper has great depth and I can’t help but feel that each reader will have a different experience with it.
Each little chapter of this story is titled with the name of a white thing, and the events and reflections of the chapter surround its material theme.
It is this, along with the empty space, that draws the reader into the very sensation of whiteness. a somber kind of melancholy peace that gently grips and squeezes.
The narration ranges from first to third person, but always focuses on the same lonely character: a Korean woman who spends time living in an unspecified Central European city.
It is here that our unnamed narrator spends her time in introspection, although I hesitate to say the exact subject.
the story has nothing to do with the real dialogue, and its chapters are short and the time between them is not clear, but what is clear is the way the character lessens the weight he carries, eases his feelings and helps the reader to lose the tension that they may not know they are holding while reading.
the white book is an experience to the extent that it is a novel. I urge all han kang fans to read it, but also anyone looking for a very different kind of art; art that is hard to explain and harder to talk about afterwards.
dusk by hwang sok-yong
translated by sora kim-russell
have you ever heard big yellow cab? I like the version of counting crows. Hwang Sok-yong is possibly Korea’s most prestigious and respected living author.
After the success of his novels, The Bari Princess and Family Matters, we arrived here at dusk.
The narrative here is divided into two, with the odd chapters of the book reminiscing about the life and memories of park minwoo, a rags-to-riches architect approaching old age, and the even chapters follow The story of Jung Woohee, a twenty-eight-year-old woman who barely makes ends meet by working part-time to finance her passion for writing and directing theater.
These two narratives apparently have nothing in common. until they do.
Park Minwoo’s story is a familiar one: that of a man born into hardship and poverty, who worked his way through a series of fascinating and intense tests and jobs to reach the success he always dreamed of.
The interesting twist on the formula here is that, for Park, the tests have always been met, and we are now presented with a look back on his life from the point of view of an aging man who has become disenchanted with his wealth and their current social, political and economic situation.
As for Jung, his story takes on a very different narrative flavor. it is both lighter in tone and heavier.
Her struggles are in the present, and the immediacy of her pain and struggle for success is felt with real intensity.
Still, he has a lot of personality on display, and his dialogues and exchanges are full of vigor.
The topic of the day here has much to do with the growing gravity of regret hanging over Park as he considers his role in modernizing and transforming modern Korea.
In his flashbacks, he slowly begins to yearn for the raw life he had carved out and survived in the slums of his childhood, a time when he perhaps felt most alive.
infinite blue sky by lee hyoseok
translated by steven d. capers
Korea has seen a hundred tumultuous years, with Japanese occupation, a civil war, and finally a division carved into its belly, separating North and South.
In the midst of so much tumult, it’s easy for information to get lost.
Fighting against all this loss of information, and breaking down the barriers of language and time, is publishing house honford star, which began by translating the short stories of many lost Korean writers into English.
Infinite Blue Sky is the first full-length Korean novel by the honford star.
the story of an endless blue sky begins with our protagonist, the writer ilma, who travels to manchuria for the umpteenth time on business and, while there, meets a russian ballerina, nadia, with whom he is deeply in love.
conversing mostly in English, their relationship blossoms quickly; And Nadia, through Ilma, has fallen in love with the fascinating world of Joseon (Korea), demanding to be caught to discover her fashion, her theater and her art for herself.
Framing this blossoming romance is a colorful cast of characters, the most eccentric of which is actress danyeong, a woman obsessed with separating ilma from her foreign lover and stealing him away.
Her demeanor is so obscenely cloak-and-dagger that the reader can’t help but imagine her, finger to her lips, sneaking a few steps behind ilma, muttering to herself about love and passion behind a nose and a fake mustache.
More than once, as I read, I considered with a smile that he read seems to exist as a wonderful opposite to Japan’s yukio mishima, a man of far-right conservative values who chose to defend his nationalist beliefs through aggressive stories of blood. and betrayal.
in the same way, lee’s policy is not hidden here, but exposed for all to see. the difference is in their opposing beliefs.
While Mishima worshiped traditionalism and rejected change, Lee welcomed globalization, socialism, and the eradication of borders.
while mishima wrote with anguish and rage, lee wrote with love and celebration, although they both wrote from the heart anyway.
lee hyoseok was absolutely one of the most fascinating writers to come out of korea in the early 20th century; a man of exciting political philosophies and a deliciously European approach to storytelling.
The endless blue sky is a delight to read, with eccentric characters and a love story that twists and turns with true human depth and agency as it progresses with a quick click.
one of the best classic Korean novels and a true literary gem.
city of ash and red by hye-young pyun
translated by sora kim-russell
From the writer of The Hole (2017 Shirley Jackson Award Winner), City of Ash and Red is a phenomenal celebration of all things dark and evil, and readers are in for a dystopian good time with this one.
this is just further proof of pyun’s skill as the author of the best korean novels of this century.
Our unnamed protagonist (unnamed, perhaps, because his name doesn’t matter, or because it’s up for debate), divorced and working as a rat catcher, is quickly and inexplicably relocated by his company to a country only referenced like c.
Upon arrival he finds the entire country awash in disease and garbage, with people dragged into quarantine, and fear and distrust in the air.
For the duration of your transfer, you’ve been in contact with someone named mol, but you soon discover that mol isn’t that easy to track down: the name is incredibly common in country c.
this is the first of a hundred problems our protagonist faces as he is soon quarantined, released, has his luggage ‘misplaced’, is told not to go to work for ten days and receives a call from an old friend. that he had married our protagonist’s ex-wife, only for this friend to tell him that his ex-wife was found dead in our hero’s apartment, and he is the prime suspect.
Any Kafka fan will recognize parallels between this tale and more than one from Old Franz, the key link being an overwhelming sense of confusion, fear, and frustration. our protagonist searches for answers, but finds none.
he wants to explain himself, but nobody listens to him; in fact, nobody cares. he wants to firmly control the facts, to keep his world from spinning around and around, but the more desperate he becomes, the more life beats him down and rebukes him.
You can see why, at this point, calling this book merely Kafkaesque is not enough. city of ash and red is something else entirely.
the color of the sky is the shape of chesil’s heart
translated by takami nieda
note: the color of the sky is the heart shape in which it was written and translated from Japanese, so consider it a wildcard, but it is still vital to the history and culture of the city. modern korea. .
Inspired by the author’s own experiences as a Korean zainichi in Japan, the color of the sky is the shape of the heart that casts a bright light on this Japanese subculture.
Zainichi Koreans are Japanese citizens of Korean descent who came into existence as a result of the Japanese Empire’s occupation of the Korean Peninsula.
Our protagonist, Ginny/Jinhee Park, was born to Zainichi Korean parents and raised in Japan, speaking only Japanese.
At the beginning of the novel, Ginny lives in Oregon and tells us about her childhood in Japan, attending Japanese and Korean schools.
From her earliest age, as a Korean zainichi, Ginny (born Jinhee), faced discrimination and hardship. we see these difficulties through visceral and painful vignettes.
We see the way the Japanese view Jinhee and her people, and the way she was treated in Korean school as a girl who only speaks Japanese.
jinhee is the daughter of two cultures but feels she belongs to neither; she discriminated in any direction she takes.
the color of the sky is the shape of the heart is a difficult reading but it could not be anything else. it begs for sympathy and understanding, and has much to teach us about Korean zainichi culture.
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