Recommendations based on "Roses and Champagne (Comic) Vol. 1"

In 1917, deep in the snowy mountains of occupied Korea, an impoverished local hunter on the brink of starvation saves a young Japanese officer from an attacking tiger. In an instant, their fates are connected, a chance encounter that will shape both of their lives for over half a century. Meanwhile, in the north of Korea, a young girl named Jade is sold by her family to Miss Silver's courtesan school in the glamorous city of Pyongyang. When she befriends an orphan boy named JungHo, they form a deep friendship. But before long, JungHo will be swept up in the revolutionary fight for independence, while Jade becomes a celebrated performer pursued by a wealthy romantic prospect.From the perfumed chambers of a courtesan school in Pyongyang to the glamorous cafes of a modernizing Seoul and the boreal forests of Manchuria, Juhea Kim's unforgettable characters forge their own destinies as they shape the future of their nation. Immersive and elegant, Beasts of a Little Land unveils a world where friends become enemies, enemies become saviours, and beasts take many shapes.

Available for the first time in English, the ten short stories by modern Korean women collected here touch in one way or another on issues related to gender and kinship politics. All of the protagonists are women who face personal crises or defining moments in their lives as gender-marked beings in a Confucian, patriarchal Korean society. Their personal dreams and values have been compromised by gender expectations or their own illusions about female existence. They are compelled to ask themselves "Who am I?" "Where am I going?" "What are my choices?" Each story bears colorful and compelling testimony to the life of the heroine. Some of the stories celebrate the central character’s breakaway from the patriarchal order; others expose sexual inequality and highlight the struggle for personal autonomy and dignity. Still others reveal the abrupt awakening to mid-life crises and the seasoned wisdom that comes with accepting the limits of old age.The stories are arranged in chronological order, from the earliest work by Korea’s first modern woman writer in 1917 to stories that appeared in 1995―approximately one from each decade. Most of the writers presented are recognized literary figures, but some are lesser-known voices. The introduction presents a historical overview of traditions of modern Korean women’s fiction, situating the selected writers and their stories in the larger context of Korean literature. Each story is accompanied by a biographical note on the author and a brief critical analysis. A selected bibliography is provided for further reading and research.Questioning Minds marks a departure from existing translations of Korean literature in terms of its objectives, content, and format. As such it will contribute to the growth of Korean studies, increasing the availability of material for teaching Korean literature in English, and stimulate readership of its writers beyond the confines of the peninsula.

"Destined to become a classic" (Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking), this harrowing memoir of life inside North Korea was the first account to emerge from the notoriously secretive country -- and it remains one of the most terrifying.Amid escalating nuclear tensions, Kim Jong-un and North Korea's other leaders have kept a tight grasp on their one-party state, quashing any nascent opposition movements and sending all suspected dissidents to its brutal concentration camps for "re-education."Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of one of these camps to escape and tell his story to the world, documenting the extreme conditions in these gulags and providing a personal insight into life in North Korea. Sent to the notorious labor camp Yodok when he was nine years old, Kang observed frequent public executions and endured forced labor and near-starvation rations for ten years. In 1992, he escaped to South Korea, where he found God and now advocates for human rights in North Korea.Part horror story, part historical document, part memoir, part political tract, this book brings together unassailable firsthand experience, setting one young man's personal suffering in the wider context of modern history, giving eyewitness proof to the abuses perpetrated by the North Korean regime.

Never has a final year of high school had so many new beginnings. The second volume of the fan-favorite BL manhwa turned K-drama, now in print for the first time.Seo Haebom had only just gotten used to having his friend-turned-distant-housemate, Jo Taesung, acknowledge his existence, but now it seems like they might actually be...friends again? As Taesung brings Haebom into his social circle, Haebom discovers not only how much he’s missed his childhood playmate, but how much more fun high school can be if he has the confidence to stop being such a wallflower.But after so many years of a predictable—if lonely—life, Haebom now can’t seem to stop his world from changing too quickly. Just as he begins to enjoy his new normal, Taesung starts acting like he might want to change their relationship yet again, this time to something more than friends.Volume 2 includes episodes 16-30 of the webcomic Cherry Blossoms After Winter.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An extraordinary insight into life under one of the world's most ruthless and secretive dictatorships - and the story of one woman's terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom.

Waging war from the shadows, Yul and his mother, the Daebi, continue to turn the screws on Korea's royals - and the first casualties in their sights are Crown Prince Shin and Chae-Kyung! Convinced by Yul that an upcoming television interview will be her last chance to talk divorce, Chae-Kyung is distracted from the larger picture by her feelings for her husband and the thought of freedom from oppressive palace life. Meanwhile, as the Daebi fans the flames of suspicion that surround Shin in the royal arson case, the future king finds himself on the verge of losing his once-guaranteed position. But is a royal pregnancy the answer to saving the crown prince's sullied reputation?! The Queen Mother seems to think so, as she packs off Chae-Kyung and Shin to an isolated palace to consummate their marriage. However, with their relationship running equally cold and hot these days, divorce and romance seem to be a toss-up for the crown princess! Which will Chae-Kyung choose?!

Struggling with reconciliation, Shin and Chae-Kyung are suddenly stuck in awkwardly close quarters when the king orders that the pair stay put until he can defuse the situation with Yul. But when the king, preempting Yul's plan, confronts the public with the truth about his brother's final wishes and allows them to decide who should be crown prince, Chae-Kyung seeks to defy the king's command and return home to intercede with Yul. But instead of running home, she runs right into a trap...set for Shin!

Taking a panoramic view of KoreaÕs dynamic literary production in the final decade of Japanese rule, When the Future Disappears locates the imprint of a new temporal sense in Korean modernism: the impression of time interrupted, with no promise of a future. As colonial subjects of an empire headed toward total war, Korean writers in this global fascist moment produced some of the most sophisticated writings of twentieth-century modernism. Yi TÕaejun, ChÕoe Myongik, Im Hwa, So Insik, ChÕoe Chaeso, Pak TÕaewon, Kim NamchÕon, and O Changhwan, among other Korean writers, lived through a rare colonial history in which their vernacular language was first inducted into the modern, only to be shut out again through the violence of state power. The colonial suppression of Korean-language publications was an effort to mobilize toward war, and it forced Korean writers to face the loss of their letters and devise new, creative forms of expression. Their remarkable struggle reflects the stark foreclosure at the heart of the modern colonial experience. Straddling cultural, intellectual, and literary history, this book maps the different strategies, including abstraction, irony, paradox, and even silence, that Korean writers used to narrate life within the Japanese empire.

An addictive, tell-all memoir about what happens when you try to make your dreams come true - as well as a love letter to KoreaAged twenty-one, fuelled by a love of K-dramas and a need to find herself, Alice Amelia moves to Seoul. She knows no one in her adopted country, doesn't speak the language, and hasn't tried kimchi, let alone grilled cow intestines or Korean corn dogs. But she soon realises that real-life Seoul isn't the romanticised city she'd watched on television - and it doesn't have subtitles.Determined to follow her dream, Alice becomes everything she wasn't in England: adding spicy gochujang sauce to every meal, dancing in K-pop videos, dating HOT Korean models, and even injecting salmon sperm into her eye bags. But as she breaks into the Korean entertainment industry which she idolised from afar, her life spiralled in ways she never could have imagined. Wanting to stay true to herself, she wonders, will she ever belong in Korea? And what price will it cost her to stay?

A photographic journey through the architecture of North Korea's “model” utopia.The story of Pyongyang is unique even in the annals of model cities and modernist utopias. Entirely rebuilt after the Korean War, North Korea's capital city was planned and fully implemented to embody a single ideological vision. This extraordinary, richly illustrated book takes readers on a photographic journey through the architecture of North Korea's “model” utopia.Built as an ideological guide for its citizens, Pyongyang displays a unique architectural cohesion and narrative. From the city's large-scale monumental axes to its symbolic sports halls and experimental housing, Model City offers offers comprehensive visual access to Pyongyang's restricted buildings. The architecture of Pyongyang exists within a culture that favors construction and renewal over historical preservation, and in recent years many buildings have been redeveloped to remove interior features or render facades unrecognizable. Often kitschy, colorful, and dramatic, Pyongyang's architecture makes it difficult to distinguish between reality and theater. As befits a culture that has carefully crafted its own narrative, the backdrop of each photograph in Model City has been replaced with a color gradient, evoking the pastel skies of North Korea's propaganda posters.Model City features two hundred color illustrations of buildings rarely seen by non-North Koreans, diagrams and architectural drawings that reveal the planning behind the city's elaborate symbolism, and texts by experts on Korean architecture—including an excerpt from On Architecture by Kim Jong-Il, father of the current leader Kim Jong-un. The authors' research has been supported by Koryo Studio and Korea Cities Federation.