K-Book Trends -

Search word : "Novelist", Search result : 162

[TREND / TOPIC]

Topic The Power of K-Readers Over K-Books A Report from the 1st Busan International Children’s Book Fair 2025.01.06 The banner of the 2024 Busan International Children’s Book Fair An international children’s book fair in Busan, Korea? On November 28, the 1st Busan International Children’s Book Fair kicked off at BEXCO in Busan. As the first international children’s book fair to be held in Korea, it was themed on the imaginary land of Laputa, the floating kingdom in the sky that Gulliver traveled to in Gulliver’s Travels. The book fair attracted 193 exhibitors and 118 authors and speakers from 16 countries, including domestic and international publishers and organizations specializing in children’s books. Also, more than 150 side programs took place. All beginnings are both exciting and nerve-wracking. The fact that an international children’s book fair, symbolized by Bolo...

VOL.78 / 2025.01

[TREND / EXPORT CASE]

Spreading Its Wings To the World: The Seoul Letter Shop

Export Case Spreading Its Wings To the World: The Seoul Letter Shop 2025.01.06 On October 12, 2023, I received an email from Shinwon Agency, Korea’s first copyright export agency. They wanted to meet me at the Frankfurt Book Fair. I was going to be there, so we agreed to meet on October 19. This was about a month after I had sent them a cold email looking for an export partner. Within that month, I sent them a cover letter for my publishing house, met with them to introduce my publication lineup, and passed on additional materials about the works they were interested in. Among them was a proposal for The Seoul Letter Shop (TXTY), including a synopsis.It felt interesting and fateful that two Korean companies would be meeting in Frankfurt on October 19, 2023, to talk about working together. Shinwon said that there was a lot of interest from Anglo-American partner agencies and offered an exclusive agreement for The Seoul Letter Shop. I was flabbe...

VOL.78 / 2025.01

[TREND / TOPIC]

Poetry Collections: The Trend of the Era and the Compass of the Heart

Topic Poetry Collections: The Trend of the Era andthe Compass of the Heart 2024.12.02 The rise of Korean poetry and its global takeoff There have been a number of “unusual” scenes in Korean literature in recent years. If I told you that Korean poetry is at the center of it, would international readers believe me? The proportion of readers in their 20s and 30s buying poetry books is increasing. The share of teenagers is also increasing, not to mention the number of poetry books being published. It is no longer strange or unfamiliar to see people transcribing poems. There are even bookstores in Korea that sell only poetry books. It’s a curious thing. Haven’t we all moved on to YouTube, TikTok, and Netflix? The thing that’s being “unlocked” should be smartphones, not poetry books, isn’t it?The year 2024 is poised to be a monumental year in Korean literary history. It is 100 years since the publication of Chu Yo-Han’ first poetry collection Beau...

VOL.77 / 2024.12

[TREND / KNOWLEDGE]

Korean Publishing Market’s Trends in 2024 and Outlook for 2025

Knowledge Korean Publishing Market’s Trends in 2024 and Outlook for 2025 2024.12.02 Trends in 2024: Questioning life, fandoms, and Nobel Prize in Literature Philosophy and psychology books have dominated the Korean publishing market, with Reading Schopenhauer at Forty (Uknowbooks) topping the overall bestseller list through August. Also, 11 of the 30 bestselling fiction titles in the first half of the year were “rebound” titles, meaning they were published more than 10 years ago. In addition, the nonfiction category returned to growth after 4 years of decline, and the cases of books becoming bestsellers after being recommended by celebrities increased.Reading Schopenhauer at Forty has continued to grow in popularity this year after being featured on a TV entertainment series last year. The autho...

VOL.77 / 2024.12

[TREND / SPECIAL PROJECT]

Literary Awards: A Message of the Times

Special Project [Award-winning Korean Books ①] Literary Awards: A Message of the Times Major Korean literary award-winning books in 2024 2024.11.04 Writer Han Kang, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2024 Where does the authority of the Nobel Prize in Literature derive from? Is it the huge prize of 1.3 billion won, or the long history of 124 years? Or is it the exceptional life stories of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite? Well, it’s probably a combination of all of these elements, but more than that, it’s the message that holds the secret to its long-standing authority. The Nobel Prize in Literature has always pointed out exactly what we, as a species, need to think about right now, and where we should be headed together. Each year, hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of people around the world share the same curiosity when the Prize is announced. They ask themsel...

VOL.76 / 2024.11

[INFORMATION / NEW BOOKS]

The Mood We Want for Tomorrow

New Books The Mood We Want for Tomorrow 2026.09 Kang Bora, Kwon Seok, et al., Even Wanting It to Be Fun Is Asking Too Much, Munhakdongne, 2026. Even Wanting It to Be Fun Is Asking Too Much is a short story anthology published by Munhakdongne since 2023. The anthology's theme is “labor.” Its editor is novelist Jang Kang-myoung, a writer who moves between reality and literature to capture a self-portrait of Korean society, sometimes sharply and sometimes with humor. In planning the labor fiction series, he set the rule that, driven by the belief that “more works capturing today's labor scene need to be written,” the stories should record the “here and now” rather than decades past or a distant future, and should be written realistically, through legwork. Jang Kang-myoung, together with writers who shared this vision, formed a literary collective cal...

VOL.98 / 2026.09

[TREND / EXPORT CASE]

New Trends in Korean Literature

Export Case New Trends in Korean Literature 2024.10.07 It’s important to be ahead of the pack in global publishing; to find the new trends and to be future looking in order to be successful. I have always been an explorer, a seeker of the new, while travelling professionally and personally, and that has led me to discover Korean literature more than a decade ago. The first books to break through were literary masterpieces Please Look After Mom (Changbi Publishers) by Shin Kyung-Sook and The Vegetarian (Changbi Publishers) by Han Kang. After the initial introduction of Korean books to global readers who had never heard of them, let alone read them, I introduced mysteries and thrillers which are already super popular in the World English and global markets. So, readers of Steig Larrsen’s mega-bestseller, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, devoured Jeong You-Jeong’s The Good Son (EunHaeng NaMu Publishing). J.M. Lee’s The Investigation (EunHae...

VOL.75 / 2024.10

[TREND / TOPIC]

Dreaming of a Different Peace as We Depart from Houyhnhnms

Topic Dreaming of a Different Peace as We Depart from Houyhnhnms 2024.08.05 The 2024 Seoul International Book Fair (SIBF) has concluded with great success. During the peak hours when the crowd surged, I found myself in a state of constant anxiety, hoping that everything would go smoothly. As visitors queued up, stretching so far that the end of the line was out of sight, and the temperature inside rose, making the air conditioning struggle, my heart tightened. Yet, now I breathe a sigh of relief that the event ended without major incidents. Main posters of 2024 SIBF Challenges in preparing for the 2024 Seoul International Book Fair This year’s preparation for the Seoul International Book Fair was fraught with challenges. Traditionally held in Hall A on the first floor of COEX, we were informed last year to reduce the event...

VOL.73 / 2024.08

[INFORMATION / NEW BOOKS]

Hands Picking Strawberries, Faces Erased

New Books Hands Picking Strawberries, Faces Erased 2026.08 Kim Soom, Strawberry Theory, Minumsa, 2026. Novelist Kim Soom is an author who quietly listens to and observes the lives of the socially vulnerable, such as Comfort Women survivors and visually impaired individuals, expressing their stories in her own unique literary style. Strawberry Theory is a work that depicts the lives of workers in a strawberry field through the eyes of "Hshapyae," a female migrant worker who moved to Korea from Myanmar. In Hshapyae's homeland of Myanmar, a tragedy of fratricidal war unfolds due to civil conflict, while the aftermath of earthquakes leaves her family living on the streets. The money Hshapya...

VOL.97 / 2026.08

[INFORMATION / NEW BOOKS]

How close are we, and how far apart?

New Books How close are we, and how far apart? 2026.04 Kim Yeon-su, Hirano Keiichiro, Nearby World (2026) Nearby World, a collaborative project planned and written by Kim Yeon-su and Hirano Keiichiro, prominent novelists representing Korea and Japan, has been published. Nearby World is the first installment of the Cross series, in which two authors living in different languages and cultures select a theme, in this case, ethical dilemmas, and each complete a work to be bound into a single volume. Author Kim Yeon-su explains that the term ethical is not a binary distinction between right and wrong, but rather an attitude of contemplating each person's own truth and sense of rightness within events where the desires of countless humans are intertwined. The volume includes Kim Yeon-su's Our Failure followed by Hirano Keiichiro's The Decisive Moment, concluding w...

VOL.93 / 2026.04

VOL.98/2026.09

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