Reading, instead of bed rotting, is more likely to get you through tough times. Korean healing fiction, with storylines revolving around stressed- and burnt-out protagonists who discover new joy and purpose, have been topping global bestseller charts in particular.
Published in 2022, Welcome To The Hyunam-dong Bookshop, written by first-time author Hwang Bo-reum, has since sold more than 150,000 paperback copies. Its English translation was made available in Singapore in October 2024.
The novel is set in the Hyunam-dong neighbourhood in Seoul, where Yeong-ju quits her successful corporate career to open a bookshop. It attracts a menagerie of quirky characters, and through their POVs, we are reminded of the healing power of books and find comfort in our circumstances.
Like Yeong-ju, Hwang left her job as a software engineer, which led her to discover a passion for writing. After a series of rejections for her essays, she switched to fiction. Welcome To The Hyunam-dong Bookshop won a contest that got it published as an e-book. The rest, as people say, is history.
Hwang was among the Korean authors who featured at last year’s Singapore Writers Festival. The event, where she shared on topics such as work-life balance, and author-translator collaborations, offered her “the opportunity to reflect deeply”.
It was her Singaporean-born translator Shanna Tan who gave her the most intriguing insight. As Hwang pointed out, “She said that living in a multiracial nation like Singapore naturally involves a lifestyle of translation. As someone from Korea, where communication primarily happens in a single language, I found the very nature of such an environment profoundly fascinating.”
Welcome To The Hyunam-dong Bookshop examines struggles in Korean society, such as burnout, loneliness, and sense of identity. These are the same challenges readers in Singapore have to overcome.
In an intensely competitive society, individuals often end up doing things for their survival—that is, for themselves. Those actions often include pushing themselves to their limits. The characters in Welcome To The Hyunam-dong Bookshop have also been driving themselves hard, running tirelessly in pursuit of survival. They’ve split their time into the smallest fragments and kept going for so long that burnout and loneliness inevitably set in.
Then, at some point, they come to a halt, realising they’ve been running without ever setting a direction for their lives, and at least now, they’re trying to pause for once and reassess their direction. How can one reset their direction? That’s the question I wanted to explore in the novel.
To do so, I gave the characters time that flowed slowly, and I gave them companions who shared the same flow of time and also conversations with those companions. Reading books, sipping coffee, and having deep, meaningful conversations with the people nearby—I believe such times have something profound to teach us.
There are some experiences you share with the protagonist Yeong-ju. How did this make portraying her more difficult?
Yeong-ju and I share some similarities, but there are far more differences between us. In particular, the experiences Yeong-ju had before opening the bookstore are ones I have never had. Yeong-ju was on a successful career path in a company but experienced burnout and abandoned everything to start a new life.
When writing about this part of Yeong-ju’s past, which appears in the latter half of the novel, I approached it with the utmost care. I hoped to have conveyed clearly and meaningfully her past, which is something that sparked readers’ curiosity.
Another interesting character is Min-cheol, a rebellious teenager who learns to appreciate literature. What did you hope we took away from him?
I have a deep interest in younger people. I carry a vague yet earnest hope that their lives will be better than the ones I experienced at their age. If at all possible, I also wish for the lives and futures of adolescents to be infinitely brighter.
However, the reality is that adolescents in Korea are far from happy. Most devote the majority of their days—often sacrificing adequate sleep—to preparing for college entrance, enduring these grueling years that should be the best time of their lives, only to find that they don’t get to meet the future that they expected.
The character Min-cheol was born from my wish for them to encounter a better future. At the same time, I wanted to convey that even if they choose not to follow the path society lays out for them—or if they wish to but find themselves unable—it’s still okay. Life continues, no matter which path you take.
Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop was translated into English by Singaporean Shanna Tan. What did you enjoy about this process?
In truth, I had very little communication with Shanna while we were working on the translation. The only communication we had was when she emailed me a few questions. After the English edition of the book was published, I was delighted to be able to share the joy with her.
Shanna frequently shared with me the positive achievements of the English edition accomplished in places like Singapore and other overseas markets. I believe this shared joy was possible because both of us worked with great dedication to complete our respective tasks with excellence—I’d like to call this: a collaboration—that brought about this wonderful feeling.
K-literature has gained attention for a while, especially with Han Kang’s winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2024. What makes Korean writers so fascinating to read?
Korean authors have a remarkable ability to delve deeply into the intricacies of the human psyche, especially when it comes to internal pain and sorrow. Since everyone experiences profound pain and sadness at least once in their lives, perhaps that’s why stories that originate from these emotions have the power to draw the reader’s attention.
If you opened a bookshop, what are the first 3 books you would sell and why?
Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and Erich Fromm’s The Fear of Freedom. I rarely re-read books—it seldom happens—but when I re-read these books, I enjoyed them as much as the first time.
You worked as a software engineer for 7 years, then quit at the age of 29. If you could travel back in time, what advice would you give to yourself?
Rather than offering advice, I’d like to say thank you to myself. It’s because my past self, who embraced uncertainty and ventured onto a new path, has shaped who I am today.
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