The Gazette / December 14, 2019

It’s tricky when it comes time to making Best of the Year lists. First, there are all the buzzy books to consider and the question of whether you’re going to end up writing the same list as everyone else. Then there’s the issue of variety — should it be five fantasy novels and five science fiction ones to be fair and even? So we ended up cheating. (..)

bookriot / March 02, 2020

If you loved the critically acclaimed and astonishing film Parasite—directed by Bong Joon-ho, with a screenplay cowritten by Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won—and you’re looking for more great Korean artistry to scratch that itch, look no further than the incredible books in translation coming out of South Korea right now. Many of these novels have themes similar to the ones explored in Parasite, some capture the tone and mood of the film, and others feel quite different but have the genius, the same ingenuity of Parasite.

avclub / May 29, 2020

Every month, a deluge of new books comes flooding out from big publishers, indie houses, and self-publishing platforms. So every month, The A.V. Club narrows down the endless options to five of the books we’re most excited about.  

inews / June 12, 2020

In Korean writer Ha Seong-nan’s most recently translated work, apparently ordinary characters and situations surreptitiously slip off-kilter. These stories act as acute reminders of how our supposedly normal lives can quickly become much stranger. Take “On That Green, Green Grass”, for example: a couple purchases a pet dog to stand in for the noisy happiness they imagined their child, whose disability means he is “more like a still-life object”, would provide. After their dog goes missing, the parents nosedive into a spiral of obsession and neglect. It is an agonisingly honest read about expectations of marital bliss.

Newcity Lit / August 20, 2020

“Bluebeard’s First Wife,” originally published in 2002, is a collection of short stories from South Korean author Ha Seong-Nan. Ha Seong-Nan has won five major literary awards in Korea, including the Contemporary Literature Award in 2009. Her second collection finally got an English-language translation by Janet Hong, and was released in the U.S. in June.

The Express Tribune / August 19, 2020

The novel, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, illustrates the struggle of an ordinary Korean woman, Jiyoung, to prove her worth in a surrounding that insists on putting a feather in men’s cap, even when they do not deserve it. She is a reflection of all those women who leave their jobs and careers because of marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare or for the education of young children. Cho Nam-Joo had written this fiction to bring on the table issues that had long been sneaked under the carpet because women were taken for granted.

KQED / November 02, 2020

In a recent issue of n 1, contributor Nausicaa Renner formally renounced reading essays about coronavirus. Until quarantine ends, she wrote, "I vow to only read fiction. For me, the well of individual experience has run dry." For me, though, reading fiction is no guarantee of release from my anxieties about health and country. Nor do I always want that release. But when I do, I turn to fiction that lives at least a little bit outside the realm of the possible. The two story collections and two novels below, arranged from least to most otherworldly, have guided me away from my concerns—and then helped me return, re-energized.

NPR / November 01, 2020

In a recent issue of n 1, contributor Nausicaa Renner formally renounced reading essays about coronavirus. Until quarantine ends, she wrote, "I vow to only read fiction. For me, the well of individual experience has run dry." For me, though, reading fiction is no guarantee of release from my anxieties about health and country. Nor do I always want that release. But when I do, I turn to fiction that lives at least a little bit outside the realm of the possible. The two story collections and two novels below, arranged from least to most otherworldly, have guided me away from my concerns — and then helped me return, re-energized.

Publishers Weekly(PW) / -

Ha’s nitro-fueled collection captures the dark side of South Korean society in mischievous, unapologetic feminist stories. Shocking violence occurs between a new married couple, a dog is stolen, and neighbors are suspiciously noisy among other disturbances in this wonderfully weird book. 

Hyperallergic / July 06, 2019

If you have ever lived in an apartment building and wondered about your neighbors, perhaps those living right next door or just across the hall, the title story of Flowers of Mold (Open Letter, 2019) by Ha Seong-nan, translated from the Korean by Janet Hong, is for you.