From Squid Game to Parasite, BTS to Blackpink, Korean popular culture has ascended to the summit of global attention.
Korean books, especially novels by women authors, are also finding enthusiastic readers far beyond native audiences. Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo, a fictionalized memoir with factual footnotes, ignited a feminist groundswell in South Korea and has sold over 1 million copies worldwide since its publication in 2016. The Vegetarian by Han Kang received the 2016 Man Booker International Prize and has been translated into two dozen languages.
An online database of titles called MatchWHALE is set to add many more Korean titles to libraries and bookstores around the world.
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“Apart from bestsellers, Korea produces a variety of high-quality literature, nonfiction, and illustrated books for adults and children every year,” explains MatchWHALE founder Beatrice Lin.
“We thought we needed very powerful tools that can introduce Korea’s wonderful books more effectively to overseas readers and publishers, especially recommending books that align with their interests, and so, we launched MatchWHALE,” she tells me.
From 2017 to 2021, sales of Korean literature published rose 10 percent year over year, according to Lin.