Shin Kyung-sook Books in Order

When their mother disappears at a Seoul subway station, her husband and adult children struggle to find her. Their search brings uncomfortable memories to the surface, revealing how little they understood the woman who held their family together.

A call from an old lover sends Jung Yoon back through memories of university life in politically turbulent 1980s South Korea. Friendship, literature, grief, and first love connect her past to a professor whose life is nearing its end.

A teenage girl moves from the countryside to Seoul, working in a factory while trying to finish school and become a writer. Her story confronts the exploitation and rapid industrial growth that shaped the lives of young women in 1970s Korea.

Yi Jin, an orphan raised within the Joseon court, attracts a French diplomat who gains permission to take her to Paris. New freedoms and literary work offer possibilities, but homesickness and political turmoil complicate her life between two worlds.

Alone in Seoul, twenty-two-year-old San finds work in a flower shop and begins encountering a new circle of people. Haunted by rejection, she briefly allows herself to hope for connection amid a city that often overlooks her.

After losing her daughter, Hon returns to the countryside to care for her elderly father. A chest of letters leads her to uncover his experiences of war and loss, bringing unfamiliar dimensions of his life into view.