The Impossible Fairytale tells the story of the nameless 'Child', who struggles to make a mark on the world, and her classmate Mia, whose spoiled life is everything the Child's is not. At school, adults are nearly invisible, and the society the children create on their own is marked by cruelty, soul-crushing hierarchies and an underlying menace. Then, one day after hours, the Child sneaks into the classroom to add ominous sentences to her classmates' notebooks, unlocking a series of events with cataclysmically horrible consequences. But that is not the end of this eerie, unpredictable novel...

A haunting literary crime debut from an award-winning Korean author. THE SISTER: In the summer of 2002, my big sister Hae-on was murdered. She was beautiful, intelligent, and only nineteen years old. Two boys were questioned, but the case was never solved. Her killer still walks free. THE CLASSMATE: In the summer of 2002, my classmate Hae-on was murdered. She was haughty, spoilt, a typical rich kid. But she didn't deserve to die. Even now, years later, I can't stop thinking about her. Who would do such a thing? THE FRIEND: In the summer of 2002, my friend Hae-on was murdered. The culprit was never found, but I think I know who did it... At once a gripping crime story and a fascinating dissection of class, gender and privilege in contemporary Korea, Lemon is the must-read novel of 2021.

This is not a murder story. It is the story of those left behind. Parasite meets The Good Son in this piercing psychological portrait of three women haunted by a brutal, unsolved crime. In the summer of 2002, Kim Hae-on was killed in what became known as the High School Beauty Murder. There were two suspects: Shin Jeongjun, who had a rock-solid alibi, and Han Manu, to whom no evidence could be pinned. The case went cold. Seventeen years pass without justice, and the grief and uncertainty take a cruel toll on her younger sister, Da-on, in particular. Unable to move on with her life, Da-on tries in her own twisted way to recover some of what she's lost, ultimately setting out to find the truth of what happened. Shifting between the perspectives of Da-on and two of Hae-on's classmates, Lemon ostensibly takes the shape of a crime novel. But identifying the perpetrator is not the main objective here: Kwon Yeo-sun uses this well-worn form to craft a searing, timely exploration of privilege, jealousy, trauma, and how we live with the wrongs we have endured and inflicted in turn. Praise for Lemon: 'Discovering whodunnit isn't really the point here; Lemon is a subtle, often intense meditation on the after-effects of violence' Guardian 'Chilling, suspenseful and disconcerting... I couldn't put it down and read deep into the night until I finished it, with my heart hammering' Frances Cha, author of If I Had Your Face

A delicate, timeless, and breathtaking coming-of-age story. The critically acclaimed and award-winning cartoonist Keum Suk Gendry-Kim returns with a stunning addition to her body of graphic fiction rooted in Korean history. Adapted from Park Wan-seo s beloved novel, The Naked Tree paints a stark portrait of a single nation s fabric slowly torn to shreds by political upheaval and armed conflict. The year is 1951. Twenty-year-old wallflower Lee Kyung ekes out a living at the US Post Exchange, where goods and services of varying stripe are available for purchase. She peddles hand-painted portraits on silk handkerchiefs to soldiers passing through. When a handsome young northern escapee and erstwhile fine artist is hired despite waning demand, an unlikely friendship blossoms into a young woman s first brush with desire against the backdrop of the Korean War at its most devastating. Gendry-Kim brings a masterpiece of world literature to life with bold, expressive lines that capture a denuded landscape brutally forced into transition and the people who must find their way back to each other within it. Available for the first time in English, this edition of The Naked Tree is exquisitely translated by award-winning expert Janet Hong.

Keum Suk Gendry-Kim was an adult when her mother revealed a family secret: She had been separated from her sister during the Korean War. It s not an uncommon story the peninsula was split across the 38th parallel, dividing one country into two. As many fled violence in the north, not everyone was able to make it south. Her mother s story inspired Gendry-Kim to begin interviewing her and other Koreans separated by the war; that research fueled a deeply resonant graphic novel. The Waiting is the fictional story of Gwija, told by her novelist daughter, Jina. When Gwija was seventeen years old, after hearing that the Japanese were seizing unmarried girls, her family married her in a hurry to a man she didn't know. Japan fell, Korea gained its independence, and the couple started a family. But peace didn t come. The young family of four fled south. On the road, while breastfeeding and changing her daughter, Gwija was separated from her husband and son. Then seventy years passed. Seventy years of waiting. Gwija is now an elderly woman and Jina can t stop thinking about the promise she made to help find her brother. Expertly translated from the Korean by the award-winning translator Janet Hong, The Waiting is the devastating followup to Gendry-Kim s Grass, which appeared on best-of-the-year lists from The New York Times, The Guardian, Library Journal, and more.

The satirical saga of three artists seeking recognition. But there can be only one Artist. A novelist, single, forty-four years old. A painter, divorced, forty-six years old. A musician, single, forty-two years old. On the outer limits of relevancy in an arts culture that celebrates youth, these three men make up the artist group Arcade. Caught in circular arguments about what makes real art and concerned about the vapid interests of their younger contemporaries, none of them are reaping the benefits of success. But there s always another chance to make it. When it comes time, out of the three, who will emerge as an acclaimed artist? More important, when one artist s star rises, will he leave the rest behind? Following Yeong-shin Ma s hit manhwa, Moms, this plunge into artistic friendships is as hilarious and infuriating as it is real. With absurdist style and off-beat humour, Artist simultaneously caricatures and complicates the figure of the artist. The friendships between the three are impassioned and mercurial, resulting in conflicts about fashion choices, squabbles with foreign children, and changes in one another's artistic fortunes for better and worse. As the story progresses we see the ways that recognition or lack thereof moulds each character s outlook, whether they will be changed by the scene or end up changing it to fit their ideals.

Lee Soyeon, Myeong-ok, and Yeonjeong are all mothers in their mid-fifties. And they ve had it. They can no longer bear the dead weight of their partners or the endless grind of menial jobs where their bosses control everything, down to how much water they can drink. Although Lee Soyeon divorced her husband years ago after his gambling drove their family into bankruptcy, she finds herself in another tired and dishonest decade-long relationship with Jongseok, a slimy waiter at a nightclub. Meanwhile, Myeong-ok is having an illicit affair with a younger man, and Yeonjeong, whose husband suffers from erectile dysfunction, has her eye on an acquaintance from the gym. Bored with conventional romantic dalliances, these women embrace outrageous sexual adventures and mishaps, ending up in nightclubs, motels, and even the occasional back-alley brawl. With this boisterous and darkly funny manhwa, Yeong-shin Ma defies the norms of the traditional Korean family narrative, offering instead the refreshingly honest and unfiltered story of a group of middle-aged moms who yearn for something more than what the mediocre men in their lives can provide. Despite their less-than-desirable jobs, salaries, husbands, and boyfriends, these women brazenly bulldoze their way through life with the sexual vulnerability and lust typically attributed to twenty-somethings.