10 must-read Korean books: the essential list, and what you need to read them in Korean

TL;DR: The focus on Korean literature has grown massively in recent years. Influential
author Han Kang won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2024. Her work has helped to shine a
spotlight onto a rich culture of novels. For those learning Korean and wanting to incorporate
literature, the most approachable Korean-language entry point is I Want to Die but I Want to
Eat Tteokbokki. But no Korean book is easy for beginners.

Most of the translations in our list of the 10 best Korean books are less than a decade old.
Translations into English have been uncommon in the past, but interest is now growing
significantly. A lot of these books tell us plenty about Korean culture and philosophy. There
is also a case for using some of the simpler books to aid learning Korean (though a decent
level of proficiency is required to even consider it).


The 10 books

TOPIK estimates are Memrise’s editorial assessment based on register, vocabulary density
and dialect. No published source rates literary novels against TOPIK.
A note on names. We give each author in the form their English-language publisher uses,
which is why Han Kang and Shin Kyung-sook appear surname-first while Bora Chung and
Sang Young Park do not. Shin Kyung-sook and “Kyung-Sook Shin” are the same writer,
although several lists online treat them as two people.


1. 채식주의자 Chaesikjuuija — The Vegetarian, Han Kang
(2007 / EN 2015)

The Vegetarian begins when Yeong-hye decides to stop eating meat following a series of
disturbing dreams. The consequences are presented through three shifting narrators rather
than from Yeong-hye’s own sustained perspective. This can make it challenging to read and
adds a further obstacle to reading it in the original.

Published as 채식주의자 (Chaesikjuuija) in 2007, the novel appeared in Deborah Smith’s
English translation in 2015. It won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize. The accuracy
and liberties of the English translation later became the subject of public debate. The Korean
original is estimated at TOPIK 5 because it has several challenges such as dream imagery
and unmarked shifts in register. The book’s fragmented and symbolic language makes it
more demanding than its modest length suggests.


2. 소년이 온다 Sonyeoni onda — Human Acts, Han Kang (2014
/ EN 2016)

Human Acts examines the human cost of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising through seven
interconnected narrators. The story begins with a young boy searching for a friend and
gradually follows others affected by the violence. Han Kang was born in Gwangju. The
uprising became one of the historical traumas later associated with her Nobel-winning body
of work.

Published as Sonyeoni onda in 2014, the novel won the Manhae Literary Prize that year.
Deborah Smith’s English translation followed in 2016 and helped to make the book popular
in the West.

The Korean text is estimated at TOPIK 6. It features second-person passages and South
Jeolla dialect. These create linguistic difficulty. It is also worth noting that some of the
political and historical vocabulary requires a level of background knowledge. It is among the
hardest books on our list to read in Korean.


3. 82 년생 김지영 — Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, Cho Nam-Joo
(Oct 2016 / EN 2020)

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 shines a light on the everyday discrimination experienced by an
apparently ordinary woman. Cho Nam-Joo presents Jiyoung’s life through report-like prose
that gives the book a unique style.

The book had a sensational impact when it was released in Korea. It sold over one million
copies by the end of 2018 and became a crucial text in a lot of debates around gender
inequality. A film adaptation followed in 2019 before Jamie Chang’s English translation made
it accessible to a wider audience.

The novel is estimated at TOPIK 3–4. This means it is one of the best entry points for
reading contemporary Korean fiction in its original language. Its sentences are generally
short and easy to digest. Much of the vocabulary concerns family and work. Readers will still
encounter some social and institutional terminology, but it is considerably more accessible
than the experimental prose found elsewhere on this list.

4. 죽고 싶지만 떡볶이는 먹고 싶어 — I Want to Die but I Want
to Eat Tteokbokki, Baek Sehee (2018 / EN 2022)

I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is a memoir rather than a novel. It records
conversations between Baek Sehee and her psychiatrist as she discusses the challenges of
life and everyday contradictions. The book was published in Korean in 2018, followed by
Anton Hur’s English translation in 2022. The book sold more than one million copies
worldwide and received additional attention after RM of popular K-pop band BTS
recommended it. Baek sadly died in October 2025 at the age of 35.

The book is estimated at TOPIK 3 and should be considered the easiest Korean text on this
list. Its transcribed therapy sessions use short turns and contemporary vocabulary that
learners may already be familiar with. The subject matter does introduce some psychological
and emotional terminology.


5. 저주토끼 Jeoju tokki — Cursed Bunny, Bora Chung (2017 /
EN 2021)

Cursed Bunny is a collection of ten stories. It covers so many bases along the way: horror,
fantasy, folklore, science fiction and dark comedy. Its unsettling tales use strange
transformations and supernatural events to examine concepts like cruelty and revenge.

The collection was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize, which was won by
Tomb of Sand. It was a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature.

We’ve estimated TOPIK 4–5 as a Korean level. The short-story format gives learners
manageable reading units. Yet a big challenge comes in the fact that the difficulty changes
considerably between stories. Everyday prose can give way to sometimes folkloric (and
difficult) language.


6. 대도시의 사랑법 — Love in the Big City, Sang Young Park
(2019 / EN 2021)

Sang Young Park’s Love in the Big City follows a young gay writer navigating life in
contemporary Seoul. The book is cleverly structured as four connected parts and mixes
humour and energy with illness and loneliness.

Love in the Big City was longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize. The relatability of
the story meant that film and television adaptations were released in 2024.

Learners wanting to read in the original language should know that the Korean text is
estimated at TOPIK 4. A lot of its language comes from modern Seoul life so there is some
slang and messaging-service language to get to grips with. The colloquial expressions and
cultural references may challenge learners accustomed to textbook Korean.


7. 엄마를 부탁해 — Please Look After Mom (US) / Please Look
After Mother (UK), Shin Kyung-sook (Nov 2008 / EN 2011)

An elderly mother disappears in a crowded Seoul station. Her family begins searching for
her while reconsidering how little they understood about her life. The narrative moves among
different family members and uses first-, second- and third-person perspectives.

The novel is known as Please Look After Mother in the UK and Please Look After Mom in
the US. Chi-Young Kim’s English translation was first released in 2011. More than two
million copies had been sold by April 2012. The book was published in 22 countries and
became one of the first Korean novels to achieve major commercial success in the US.

The Korean is estimated at TOPIK 5. Perspective changes are one potential hurdle. The
novel also uses rural Jeolla speech and complex honorific forms throughout.

8. 작별하지 않는다 — We Do Not Part, Han Kang (2021 / EN
2025)

We Do Not Part follows a writer who travels to Jeju Island after her friend suffers a serious
accident. What begins as a difficult journey through heavy snow develops into an exploration
of friendship. The story moves through her recollection and discovery of the Jeju massacres
of 1948–49.

The English edition appeared in 2025 and was translated jointly by e. yaewon and Paige
Aniyah Morris. The book won France’s Prix Médicis étranger in 2023, making Han the first
Korean recipient, and received the 2025 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.

We’ve rated it TOPIK 6. Jeju dialect and detailed historical material make it one of the most
demanding books on this list.

9. 어서 오세요, 휴남동 서점입니다 — Welcome to the Hyunam-
dong Bookshop, Hwang Bo-reum (2022 / EN 2023)

Yeongju leaves behind her previous life to open a bookshop in a quiet Seoul neighbourhood.
A lot of the story focuses on her meeting strangers and gradually forging deeper
connections.

This has been dubbed “healing fiction” in many literary circles. It is certainly a book you
could describe as “cosy” in the same way many British bestsellers are.

Shanna Tan provided an English translation just a year after its release in Korea. It is
estimated at a TOPIK level of around 3–4. The vocabulary is relatively repetitive, and the
dialogue tends to be low-stakes. There isn’t a great deal of slang or specialist subject matter
to contend with.

10. 그 많던 싱아는 누가 다 먹었을까 — Who Ate Up All the
Shinga?, Park Wan-suh (1992 / EN 2009)

Who Ate Up All the Shinga? is an autobiographical novel about a girl growing up during
Japanese colonial rule and the upheaval surrounding Korea’s liberation and division. The
narrative moves from rural life near Kaesong to Seoul and provides a personal view of a
society undergoing enormous change. Park Wan-suh published the novel in 1992. Yu
Young-nan and Stephen J. Epstein’s English translation came out in 2009.

Park is widely regarded as one of the defining voices of postwar Korean literature. This is
considered an important modern classic in Korea. Its Korean is estimated at TOPIK 5–6
because it contains colonial-era terminology and lots of war-related language. There are also
period idioms and older honorific conventions. They’re tough for most non-native speakers.


Which of these could you read in Korean?

The most approachable Korean-language book on this list is I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki. Much of it consists of transcribed conversations between Baek Sehee and her psychiatrist. Its estimated level is TOPIK 3 but some psychological terminology may still require regular dictionary use.

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is the best novel on the list for making the move into Korean fiction. Cho Nam-Joo deliberately uses flat prose and short sentences. The structure is clearer than the symbolic prose found in other books such as The Vegetarian.

The contemporary healing-fiction titles are another reasonable starting point. Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop uses plain dialogue and repeatedly returns to vocabulary connected with books and everyday life. This repetition gives readers more opportunities to recognise words from context.

Many books are at the other end of the scale. We Do Not Part requires advanced Korean. Its Jeju dialect and dense Sino-Korean vocabulary make it a TOPIK 6-level challenge.

Several features make Korean literary prose difficult:
● Honorific register: Relationships affect verb endings, titles and forms of address.
● Sino-Korean vocabulary: Formal and academic writing contains many Chinese-
derived words.
● Dialect: Regional speech can differ substantially from standard textbook Korean.
● Sentence length: Important information and the main verb may not appear until the end of a sentence.

No learner edition exists for any modern Korean novel on this list. The best option for new readers is to build vocabulary and reading fluency first. The Memrise Korean course teaches the top 1,000 words in Korean to provide a base level of vocabulary that you need to understand any written prose.

A solid recommendation is to read Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 in English now; it is 176 pages and the prose is deliberately plain. Come back to it in Korean at TOPIK 3–4, because the flat, report-like register that makes it unusual in English is what makes it readable in Korean. Read The Vegetarian in English whenever you like, but do not plan on the original until TOPIK 5. We Do Not Part and Human Acts are TOPIK 6 books, and there is no shortcut through the Jeju and Jeolla dialect in them. Nobody publishes a bridge between those two points, which is the problem this list is trying to solve.

What TOPIK level do you need?

Literary fiction in Korean is realistically a TOPIK 5–6 activity. A small number of books with
straightforward contemporary language may be approachable around TOPIK 3–4 but will not
always make comfortable reading.

TOPIK is administered by Korea’s National Institute for International Education. TOPIK I
covers Levels 1 and 2 and tests listening and reading, with a maximum score of 200. TOPIK
II covers Levels 3 to 6 and adds a writing section, producing a maximum score of 300.
TOPIK results remain valid for two years.

At the lower levels, learners can understand familiar expressions and basic everyday
material. By Level 4, they should be able to follow news articles and some abstract subjects.
Levels 5 and 6 indicate the advanced vocabulary and grammatical control needed for
professional and literary material.

No exam measures the way people actually read a novel. A reader might recognise the
grammar in a sentence but struggle with regional dialect or a lot of Sino-Korean vocabulary.
Literary authors may also disrupt standard sentence patterns intentionally. The ratings in this
article are editorial estimates and not official ratings.

Han Kang, the Nobel, and what changed

Han Kang received the Nobel Prize in Literature on 10 October 2024. She became the first Korean writer and the first Asian woman to win the Literature prize and was praised “for her
intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human
life.”

That description applies across much of her work. Human Acts examines the violence and
lasting consequences of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, while We Do Not Part engages with the
Jeju massacres of 1948–49. The Vegetarian (her best-known book internationally)
approaches control and bodily autonomy through a more intimate and surreal story.

The Nobel confirmed a standing that The Vegetarian had already begun to build. Translated
by Deborah Smith, it won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016.

The commercial effect is easier to see in the Korean numbers than the English ones. In the
nine years between publication in 2007 and the Man Booker International win in 2016, 채식
주의자 sold close to 20,000 copies at home. After the win, Changbi ordered and printed a
further 462,000 to meet demand.

Han’s Nobel recognition brought attention to Korean literature in translation. It also
encouraged readers to look beyond The Vegetarian and explore her other novels and the
wider Korean literary tradition.


Which Korean books have won the International Booker Prize?

Prize errors are the most common factual mistake on Korean reading lists, and they almost
all fall into the same trap where a book that was shortlisted gets promoted to a winner. Only
one Korean-language book has ever won the International Booker Prize. The table below
gives the status of every Korean title with a Booker history, including the four books on this
list that have none at all.

One naming note, because it trips up publishers as well as bloggers. The award was the
Man Booker International Prize in 2016 and 2019, and became the International Booker
Prize from 2020.

It is worth saying that Korean fiction does not dominate this prize. No Korean-language title
appeared on the 2025 or the 2026 longlist and the last Korean winner remains The
Vegetarian, ten years ago.

Aside from the Booker Prize, Korean literature continues to compete for other prestigious
awards. Human Acts won the Manhae Literary Prize in 2014. We Do Not Part won the Prix
Médicis étranger in 2023, the first Korean book to do so, and took the National Book Critics
Circle Award for Fiction for the 2025 publishing year, presented in March 2026. Cursed
Bunny was a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature, which The
Words That Remain won. I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki, Welcome to the
Hyunam-dong Bookshop and the English edition of Who Ate Up All the Shinga? have won
no major literary prize, whatever competing lists claim.



What Koreans are actually reading

Han Kang’s books dominated Korean bestseller lists following her 2024 Nobel Prize. The picture has changed somewhat in 2026. Fiction remains remarkably strong in Korea, but readers are now choosing a broader mix of Korean and international novels. Other forms of media are also having an impact.

Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary was Kyobo Book Center’s bestselling title between  January and May. This was partially down to interest in its film adaptation. It was followed by novels including Suzuki Yui’s Goethe Said Everything, Hanroro’s Grapefruit Apricot Club and Yang Gui-ja’s Contradiction. Eight of Kyobo’s ten bestselling books were works of fiction.

Kyobo also reported that fiction sales increased by 19.3% compared with the same period in 2025. This means a second consecutive year of double-digit growth. The brand linked this revival to readers seeking empathy and immersive stories.


What Koreans are actually reading

If you are reading in English, start with Human Acts and then The Vegetarian. That is the reverse of the usual advice, and the reason is that Human Acts gives you the history that everything else on this list is reacting to, while The Vegetarian is easier to admire once you know what Han Kang usually writes about.

If you are reading in Korean, the order is not a matter of taste. Start with I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki, because transcribed speech is the gentlest register available, and move to Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 when short declarative sentences stop slowing you down.

What makes the jump hard is not vocabulary so much as register: honorifics change verb endings, titles and forms of address according to relationships the text expects you to  already understand, and that is learned faster from hearing people speak than from a page.



Frequently asked questions

Who is Han Kang and what did she win?
Han Kang is a South Korean writer who won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature. Her novel
The Vegetarian also won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize. Born in Gwangju in 1970,
she is the first Korean writer and the first Asian woman to take the Literature prize, though
she is not Korea’s first Nobel laureate: Kim Dae-jung won the Peace Prize in 2000.

What is the best Korean book to start with?
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is an accessible introduction to modern Korean fiction. I Want to Die
but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is a simpler option for those looking to read the novel in
Korean. If you are reading in English rather than Korean, start with Human Acts instead. It is
the clearest example of the historical trauma the Nobel citation names


What should I read after The Vegetarian?
You may want to try Human Acts for another powerful Han Kang novel. Cursed Bunny also
offers similarly unsettling Korean fiction. We Do Not Part is the natural next step if you want
the history the Nobel citation singles out, though at 384 pages it asks considerably more of
you than The Vegetarian’s 183.

What TOPIK level do you need to read a Korean novel?
Most literary novels require around TOPIK 5–6. A few contemporary books may be
approachable (yet challenging) at TOPIK 3–4. No official body rates novels against TOPIK,
so treat any level you see as an editorial estimate. The exam measures news and academic
prose. It does not measure dialect, honorific play or deliberately broken syntax.


Are there bilingual Korean–English novels?
Yes, but they mainly cover older Korean classics. No bilingual or graded edition exists for the
modern books on this list. Asia Publishers’ Bi-lingual Edition Modern Korean Literature
series is the main source, and it covers pre-1980 works such as Yi Sang’s 날개 Nalgae
(Wings) with facing-page Korean and English.


Is Pachinko a Korean book?
No. Author Min Jin Lee is Korean American. Pachinko was written in English and has no
Korean original or translator. It was a 2017 National Book Award finalist rather than a winner,
and if you want a comparable family saga written in Korean, Hwang Sok-yong’s Mater 2-10
is the closer match.


Who translated Han Kang’s books?
Deborah Smith translated The Vegetarian, Human Acts and The White Book. We Do Not
Part was translated by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris. That last credit is widely got
wrong: e. yaewon is styled in lower case, and several publisher pages, including Penguin’s
own, drop Aniyah from Paige Aniyah Morris.