Wandeuk [Russian]

Author Kim Ryeoryeong
Translator Нестеров Д. А.
Korean Publisher Changbi
Overseas Published ACT

Seventeen-year-old Wandeuk comes from a poor family and struggles in school, but when it comes to fighting, he loses to no one. His family is anything but ordinary: a hunchback father, a Vietnamese mother, and even a “fake” uncle with a stutter. Yet Wandeuk refuses to be cowed or defeated by his circumstances. Instead, he throws himself headlong into the world to find a path of his own. Along the way, the people around him—including his ever-nagging homeroom teacher nicknamed Ddongju and the model student Yunha—become unexpected sources of strength, helping him grow without losing hope.

DD's Umbrella [Japanese]

Author Hwang Jungeun
Translator 斎藤 真理子
Korean Publisher Changbi
Overseas published 亞紀書房

The linked story collection DD’s Umbrella is made up of two novellas: “d” and “There Is Nothing that Needs to Be Said.” In “d,” the protagonist known only as d, shattered by the accidental death of their partner dd, takes on the quiet labor of repairing speakers at the Sewoon Sangga and sorting through her belongings, bearing the weight of their loss in silence. “There Is Nothing That Needs To Be Said,” set amid the fervor of the 2016 candlelight protests, follows the narrator and their lover Sookyung as they begin to notice and grapple with the language of discrimination and hatred lurking beneath the public outcry for democracy.

I Met Loh Kiwan [English]

Author Cho Haejin
Translator Ji-Eun Lee
Korean Publisher Changbi
Overseas Published University of Hawai`i Press

A television scriptwriter sets off for Belgium on the flimsiest of leads—just a single initial of a name. There, she attempts to trace the story of Loh Kiwan, a North Korean defector who paid a broker in Yanji a large sum to be smuggled into Europe. Following the diary of the small, thin man who once stepped off a bus from Berlin to stand alone on the streets of Brussels, she traces his path from hostels to pay-per-use restrooms, coming face-to-face with the cold indifference and loneliness he must have endured.

Shoko’s Smile [English]

Author Choi Eunyoung
Translator Sung Ryu
Korean Publisher Munhakdongne
Overseas published Penguin Randomhouse

This short story collection includes stories such as “Shoko’s Smile,” where a high school student named Soyu, living in a small provincial town, meets a Japanese exchange student named Shoko and slowly overcomes misunderstanding and moves toward genuine understanding; and “Hanji and Youngju,” in which Youngju grows close to a Kenyan man named Hanji at a monastery in France, only to find their connection severed for reasons she cannot grasp. Each story arrives at the same quiet revelation: that the possibility of understanding another person opens up only once we look squarely at how fundamentally different they are from us.

Your Utopia [English]

Author Bora Chung
Translator Anton Hur
Korean Publisher Arzak
Overseas Published Honford Star

Set in a near future where anti-discrimination laws have been enacted and the lives of many minorities have improved, “To Meet Her” follows a 120-year-old woman who has seen it all as she attends a fan meeting for “her” and finds herself caught up in an unexpected incident. The collection ranges from this piece to the award-winning “Seed” and “The End of the Voyage,” a zombie story with a startling twist. Each work in this varied science-fictional landscape carries its own struggle, and together they leave a lasting resonance with the reader.