Recipient of the 2026 Arts Council Korea Literature Fellowship
"A shining moment. Jinwoo knew that that was what they had always waited for. And that such a moment would never come for them. The red sunlight filled the car. He gazed upon the word turned completely red." —From "Gold Rush" in Gold Rush (Hankyoreh Publishing, 2024)
Sujin Seo depicts the cracks in life and relationships based on her experience of immigration and existing between two worlds.
1. Life
Born in Seoul in 1982, Sujin Seo made her literary debut in 2020 when her novel Korean Teachers won the 25th Hankyoreh Literary Award. She has since pursued an active career publishing a short story collection and multiple novels addressing immigration and diaspora, one of the key trends in contemporary Korean literature. Based in Australia, Seo uses her own experience and observations as part of the Korean Australian community as a basis for her work.
Seo's work has been published in Korea and abroad. Korean Teachers has been translated into English, with Seo promoting the novel at various international literary events and writer's festivals. She has also met with readers at lectures, book talks, and overseas residencies. These experiences, connected deeply to themes of her work, continue to enrich the author's longstanding preoccupation with immigration and the in-between.
2. Writing
In her work focused on the lives of Korean immigrants, Sujin Seo examines how identity and relationships evolve between different societies and cultures. Seo's characters move abroad in search of a better life, only to come up against various restraints ranging from the economical to the institutional to that of communal hierarchy. Unable to settle down in one place, they drift between borders of various levels.
One needs to turn no further than the short story collection Gold Rush for a taste of the author's preoccupation with this theme.In these stories, Seo paints a portrait of immigrants not as a single entity, but individuals whose daily lives are filled with desire and despair, who navigate assumptions on class and race as well as clashes and bonds within the Korean Australian community. Meanwhile, Seo's novels Korean Teachers and Yujin and Dave explore how individuals make choices and maintain them in their lives through the subjects of labor, love, and survival. I May Not Be the Mother expands on the themes of family, reproduction, and care through the subject of surrogacy, reexamining conventional relationships. Through her work, Seo continues to explore how the various backgrounds of country, family, class, and sex shape individual lives.
Reference
Short Story Collections
Gold Rush 골드러시 (Hankyoreh Publishing 한겨레출판, 2024)
Novels
Korean Teachers 코리안 티처 (Hankyoreh Publishing 한겨레출판, 2020)
Yujin and Dave 유진과 데이브 (Hyundae Munhak Publishing Co., Ltd. 현대문학, 2022)
Oleander 올리앤더 (Hankyoreh Publishing 한겨레출판, 2022)
Good Neighbors 다정한 이웃 (ITTA 읻다, 2024)
I May Not Be the Mother 엄마가 아니어도 (Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 문학동네, 2025)
Anthologies
(Co-author) Give Me Your Elbow (공저) 팔꿈치를 주세요 (QQ 큐큐, 2021)
(Co-author) I’m Not Too Big on MBTIs... (공저) 저는 MBTI 잘 몰라서… (ITTA 읻다, 2023)
(Co-author) I Really Shouldn’t Be Working Here (공저) 내가 이런 데서 일할 사람이 아닌데 (Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 문학동네, 2025)
(Co-author) Thirty Hints (공저) 서른 번의 힌트 (Hankyoreh Publishing 한겨레출판, 2025)
Children's Books
The Next Day 다음날 (kochoi 경옥초이, 2025)
Works in Translation
Korean Teachers (Harriett Press, 2022)
Reference
최정호, <정주하지 못하는 인간들>, 문장웹진 , 2024.6.1.
https://munjang.or.kr/board.es?mid=a20102000000&bid=0004&act=view&list_no=101219
Profile information provided by the Arts Council Korea (ARKO)
LTI Korea 
DLKL 
SIWF 
