Janet Hong
1) Lemon
Author
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
"In this piercing psychological portrait that takes the shape of a crime novel, a woman haunted by her sister's unsolved murder transforms herself in order to cope with the pain of absence and unknowing. In the summer of 2002, when Korea is abuzz over hosting the FIFA World Cup, nineteen-year-old Kim Hae-on is killed in what becomes known as the High School Beauty Murder. Two suspects quickly emerge: rich kid Shin Jeongjun, whose car Hae-on was last...
Author
Publisher
Open Letter
Pub. Date
2019.
Language
English
Description
Praised for her meticulous descriptions and ability to transform the mundanity of everyday life into something strange and unexpected, Ha Seong-nan bursts into the English literary scene with this stunning collection that confirms Korea's place at the forefront of contemporary women's writing. From the title story told by a woman suffering from gaps in her memory, to one about a man seeking insight in bags of garbage, to a surreal story about a car...
3) Grass
Author
Publisher
Drawn & Quarterly
Language
English
Description
Appeared on best of the year lists from The New York Times, The Guardian, and more! Winner of The Cartoonist Studio Prize for Best Print Comic of the Year!
Grass is a powerful antiwar graphic novel, telling the life story of a Korean girl named Okseon Lee who was forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese Imperial Army during the Second World War—a disputed chapter in twentieth-century Asian history.
Beginning...
Author
Series
Publisher
Open Letter
Pub. Date
©2020.
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
"Disasters, accidents, and deaths abound in Bluebeard's First Wife. A woman spends a night with her fianc and his friends, and overhears a terrible secret that has bound them together since high school. A man grows increasingly agitated by the apartment noise made by a young family living upstairs and arouses the suspicion of his own wife when the neighbors meet a string of unlucky incidents. A couple moves into a picture-perfect country house, but...
6) Umma's table
Author
Publisher
Drawn & Quarterly
Pub. Date
2020.
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Description
"The joy of food and tradition brings a family together. Madang is an artist and new father who moves to a quiet home in the countryside with his wife and young baby, excited to build a new life full of hope and joy, complete with a garden and even snow. But soon reality sets in and his attention is divided between his growing happy family and his impoverished parents back in Seoul in a dingy basement apartment. With an ailing mother in and out of...
7) Bad friends
Author
Publisher
Drawn & Quarterly
Pub. Date
[2018]
Language
English
Description
"Jinju is bad. She smokes, drinks, runs away from home, and has no qualms about making her parents worry. Her mother and sister beg her to be a better student, sister, daughter; her beleaguered father expresses his concerns with his fists. Bad Friends is set in the 1990s in a South Korea torn between tradition and Western modernity and haunted by an air of generalized gloom. Cycles of abuse abound as the characters enact violence within their power...
8) The waiting
Author
Publisher
Drawn & Quarterly
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
"Keum Suk Gendry-Kim was an adult when her mother revealed a family secret: she was separated from her sister during the Korean War. It's not an uncommon story--the peninsula was split down the 38th parallel, dividing one country into two. As many fled violence in the north, not everyone was able to make it south. Her mother's story inspired Gendry-Kim to begin interviewing her and other Koreans separated by the war; that research fueled a deeply...
9) Moms
Author
Publisher
Drawn & Quarterly
Pub. Date
2020.
Language
English
Description
"Lee Soyeon, Myeong-ok, and Yeonsun are all mothers in their mid-fifties. And they've had it. Inspired by his own mom's experiences, cartoonist Yeong-shin Ma crafts a refreshingly honest and unfiltered comic about a group of women who yearn for something more meaningful than what the mediocre men they love or their abusive and power-hungry employers can provide. Despite their less-than-desirable jobs, salaries, husbands, and boyfriends, these moms...
10) Nineteen
Author
Publisher
Drawn & Quarterly
Pub. Date
2020.
Language
English
Description
"Ancco looks back at her own tumultuous adolescence, from the not-so-distanced lens of a twenty-something. A mother's struggles mirror her teen's. Memories of care between the cartoonist and her grandmother--before her faculties had started to fade. Quick judgments look ugly through the eyes of a teen, who's leaning into her own sense of self. Whether it's friends, family, animals, or even a stranger on the internet, the stories in Nineteen exude...
11) The naked tree
Author
Publisher
Drawn & Quarterly
Pub. Date
2023.
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
"The year is 1951. Twenty-year-old wallflower Lee Kyung ekes out a living at the US Post Exchange, where goods and services of varying stripe are available for purchase. She peddles hand-painted portraits on silk handkerchiefs to soldiers passing through. When a handsome young northern escapee and erstwhile fine artist is hired despite waning demand, an unlikely friendship blossoms into a young woman's first brush with desire against the backdrop...
12) Wafers
Author
Publisher
Open Letter, Literary Translations from the University of Rochester
Pub. Date
2024.
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Description
"When truth is more gruesome than fiction--Ha Seong-nan is there. When people give in to their most intrusive thoughts--Ha Seong-nan is there. When man is more animal than animals themselves--Ha Seong-nan is there. In Wafers, her third short-story collection to appear in English, Ha continues to weave troublesome coincidences into the seemingly banal in her signature style of engrossing and unsettling prose. A best-seller in Korea, Ha Seong-nan is...
13) Dog days
Author
Publisher
Drawn & Quarterly, a client publisher of Farrar Straus & Giroux
Pub. Date
2024.
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
Yuna never wanted to adopt a dog. But with her partner in mourning - and in desperate need of a boost in morale - she gives in to his humble request. And in the grand tradition of reluctant pet owners, she and their puppy soon become inseparable. The young couple even goes so far as to relocate to soothe their new canine pal's anxiety. After all, there's nothing like a move to the country to set yourself right. Right? --
14) Artist
Author
Publisher
Drawn & Quarterly
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
"A novelist, single, forty-four years old. A painter, divorced, forty-six years old. A musician, single, forty-two years old. On the outer limits of relevancy in an arts culture that celebrates youth, these three men make up the artist group Arcade. Caught in circular arguments about what makes real art and concerned about the vapid interests of their younger contemporaries, none of them are reaping the benefits of success. But there's always another...
15) The Naked Tree
Author
Publisher
Drawn & Quarterly
Pub. Date
2023
Language
English
Formats
Description
Critically acclaimed and award-winning cartoonist Keum Suk Gendry-Kim returns with a stunning addition to her body of graphic fiction rooted in Korean history. Adapted from Park Wan-suh's beloved novel, The Naked Tree paints a stark portrait of a single nation's fabric slowly torn to shreds by political upheaval and armed conflict. Fleshing out the characters in fresh, imaginative ways, and incorporating the original author into the story, Gendry-Kim...
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