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The Plotters by Un-su Kim review – a sniper in Seoul
In his increasingly curmudgeonly later years, Kingsley Amis claimed only to favour novels that began: “A shot rang out.” The opening of Korean author Un-su Kim’s The Plotters has the potential to satisfy that boozy reactionary of English letters, as a hired gun lines up his prey in the telescopic... -
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Han Kang hands over book to remain unseen until 2114
Instead of launching her latest work in a bookshop surrounded by readers, the award-winning South Korean novelist Han Kang dragged a white cloth through a Norwegian forest before wrapping it around her manuscript, which she handed over to be locked away for 95 years. -
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The best recent thrillers – review roundup
Part of a wave of Korean thrillers translated into English in recent months, The Plotters by Un-su Kim (translated by Sora Kim-Russell; 4th Estate) follows the trials and tribulations of Reseng, found in a rubbish bin as a baby, raised in a library where assassinations are planned, and now one of... -
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Man Booker International prize 2019 longlist sees small publishers win big
Judges praise the 13 finalists – all but two published by indie houses – for ‘enriching our idea of what fiction can do’ -
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Han Kang to bury next book for almost 100 years in Norwegian forest
Prize-winning South Korean author joins Margaret Atwood and David Mitchell as a contributor to Future Library project The world’s most secretive library, currently housed only in the minds of its authors and containing books that will not be read for almost a century, has added a new writer to its... -
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The ‘mega monk’ who wants us to slow down and embrace our imperfections
Haemin Sunim is the Buddhist monk whose hugely successful self-care advice books have made him a celebrity -
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Top 10 books about South Korea
A novelist recommends favourite writing about a country that has undergone a giddying transformation in recent decades -
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Want to transform your life? Stop chasing perfection
Haemin is especially eloquent on life’s smaller dissatisfactions, and how they can sometimes be trickier to deal with than the bigger, more dramatic ones. For example, though it’s a good thing that we talk so much more openly today about mental illness, one perverse consequence is that it can... -
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The Observer Best books of 2018
Ancco's English Translation <Bad Friends 나쁜친구들> selected Best Books of 2018 (Graphic Novels) -
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Min Jin Lee: 'History has failed almost everybody who is ordinary'
Min Jin Lee, whose writings wrestle with race, class, diaspora, religion and love, is one of the 200 honorees whose modern-day work best embodies Frederick Douglass’s legacy of social change.