Join me on a literary tour of Korea

I wrote this novel because I wanted to hear the story of ordinary Koreans who loved, lived, and survived the Korean War. Inspired by my grandmother’’s stories, If You Leave Me begins with 16-year-old Haemi, who must flee her home at the onset of the war with her younger brother and mother. As she navigates love and responsibility, the choices she makes reverberates for generations.

Pachinko has sold more than one million copies worldwide and needs no introduction. Beginning in the early 1900s, Pachinko is a multigenerational family saga that follows teenaged Sunja from Korea to Japan, where she makes a home for her children and future generations despite strife, war, love, and loss. Epic and unforgettable.

The Liberators is a poetic, transformative novel that begins in 1980 South Korea, during the height of a military dictatorship. Following the Insuk and Sungho, who marry and immigrate to California, this is a novel that chronicles the lasting effects of trauma and memory.

This is a fiercely funny novel told from the perspective of a recently-deceased 105-year old grandmother. (Stay with me!) As Jeonga (in ghost form) tries to protect her family while hiding a long-held secret, she must confront memories of the Korean War and the choices she once made to protect her own.

A hilarious, aching, and dazzling novel that is set in 2018, Nuclear Family follows the Cho family. While Mr. and Mrs. Cho (and their daughter Grace) work at a Korean plate lunch restaurant in Hawaiʻi, their son Jacob has been possessed by a ghost at the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. Antics, both funny and heartbreaking, ensue.

Set in contemporary Korea, If I Had Your Face follows four young women who live in the same building in Seoul as they try to make a life in a beauty-obsessed, cutthroat Seoul. Kyuri works in a “room salon,” where she entertains drunk businessmen, while her roommate Minho navigates life as an artist. Ara is a plastic-surgery obsessed hair stylist, and Wonna is a newlywed trying to start a family. This one is a delicious, sharp read.