VOL.80/2025.03

Geulhangari

A Repository of Knowledge

 

2020.12.07

 

 

Logo of Geulhangari

 

 

Since its establishment in 2007, Geulhangari has published around 800 titles, with a majority of them being so-called "brick books" due to how thick they are (close to a whopping 1,000 pages!). Under the company motto of "boring books are the grave of ideas," Geulhangari has been focusing on publishing history, philosophy, and classical books while expanding their fields into literature, essay, science, and not to mention practical books. While working at its best to become a publisher of various colors, let's look into what Geulhangari has to say.

 

Please introduce Geulhangari to overseas publishers.

 

Geulhangari has been publishing books in various fields, including humanity, history, philosophy, art, and science, since the first title was released in 2007. While the big base is humanity and social science, we are trying to digest various fields when we discover fine titles. And we are mostly known as a publisher that makes "brick books" that are as long as 1,000 pages.

 

What path has Geulhangari been walking on since 2007, and what are your achievements so far?

 

We have published about 800 titles since we first opened our doors. It has been ten years of endeavor, discovering and publishing meaningful writings reflecting the meaning of the name Geulhangari, which derived from a story of Yeonam Park Ji-Won, who is known to have kept even the most trivial memos in life inside a pot. In the early years, we focused on history, philosophy, and classical titles, but now we are adding literature, essay, science, and practical books. And we think that being known and remembered as a publisher that "steadily" releases "many" of the profound liberal arts books is one of the achievements we have made until today.

 

 

Geulhangari has been steadily publishing a variety of liberal arts books ever since the first title was released in 2007.

 

 

Could you please introduce three of the representative books of Geulhangari to our overseas readers?

 

A Book for Highly Sensitive Person written by Jeon Hong-Jin, 2020
Written by professor Jeon Hong-Jin, who has been treating and consulting more than 10,000 patients as a psychiatry specialist at Samsung Medical Center, the book has been at the center of readers' attention as soon as it was published. Professor Jeon says that symptoms can get better without psychiatric counseling or drug treatments only if one pays good attention to the "highly sensitive" characteristic of their personality. He describes how to ease sensitiveness and improve quality of life through 40 cases he has chosen.
Wandering with Plants written by Lee So-Yeong, 2018
Writer Lee So-Yeong is a plant miniaturist and a botanist who takes records of plants by drawing. In the book, she talks about her past ten years of studying and drawing plants and stories of plants and people she met in botanic gardens, mountains, fields, gardens, and empty lots.
Black Tea written by Mun Ki-Young, 2014
This is a guide book that has all knowledge about black tea. Mun indulged in charming black tea as he was in charge of its sales during his 16 years long marketing career in the Dong Suh Foods Corporation. He left the company and began to jump more in-depth into the world of black tea. To fill in his curiosity about black tea, he started reading books of black tea experts in Britain, the US, and France; he also visited India, Sri Lanka, and Taiwan, which are major black tea producers, not to mention Britain, a country that bloomed the black tea culture, and France, which is writing a new history of black tea today. And this book is the fruit of all his efforts. While being recognized as a bible about black tea, the book's publication rights were exported to China and Taiwan.

 

Does Geulhangari have a standard or values that it considers when it comes to choosing authors or titles?

 

We tend to take a general look at the text, author's career, or the topic rather than sticking to a particular standard or values. Because we always have the idea that we should publish books that talk about topics our society needs, we prefer authors that cover such issues that raise awareness about new topics or those that others have not touched upon yet. Instead of signing a contract with a famous writer, we try to be a container for a variety of personalities.

 

 

Geulhangari always keeps the idea in mind that we should publish books
that talk about the most necessary topics in our society.

 

 

What is the major area of Geulhangari, and what is your growth momentum?

 

As we've mentioned above, we are now expanding our field into literature, essay, science, and practical knowledge from where we have been focusing on history, philosophy, and classical areas before. But still, we have not set foot in economics, business administration, self-development, and children's books. So the company is not a general publisher, so to say. Just think of us as a publisher that produces books in the great world of liberal arts and science. We believe that it was just natural to expand our publication areas. We separated Geulhangari Science as an independent brand as the importance of science grew, set up a Chinese modern novel category as we promoted learning more about China, and planned various essay books to glimpse how life would change after COVID-19. We also try to seek new opportunities, as pushing only one field would eventually have a limit in market size, and you may no longer be fast-responding to changing trends. And for the growth momentum, we think that concentrating on publishing is the power that keeps us going forward.

 

Geulhangari has this unique section called "EDITOR'S NOTE." It is refreshing to see the unique ideas of the editors. Is there a reason for having this separate editor's note?

 

Editors play a critical role in making books, but their efforts are not recognized much after publication. In fact, editors are the ones that know everything about the book as they have been there from the beginning of the production, but they do not commonly have a chance to communicate with readers. To help readers listen to the editors' story and help editors communicate with the readers, we have created the "EDITOR'S NOTE." All for our readers that are curious about what happened after the end of the story.

 

What kind of publisher does Geulhangari want to become, and what are your future plans?

 

"Boring books are the grave of ideas" was the motto when Geulhangari was first established. We believe that books must be fun and entertaining, which means that messages have to melt naturally inside the story. It could be possible for the publisher to push forward with a specific stance or values, but it would leave out various ideas. We are still pursuing the motto we set in the beginning as we publish, and it is our goal to not lose steam.

 

Website geulhangari.com
Instagram instagram.com/bookpot/
Facebook facebook.com/geulhangari
Twitter twitter.com/bookpot1

 

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Organized by Lee Ji-Hyeon