Recipient of the 2025 Arts Council Korea Literature Fellowship
"If we don't do anything," Ju-wun said, holding 23's hands, "if we don't do anything, this world will disappear." Excerpt from "B's World," in B's World(Munhakdongne, 2019)
Choi Sang-hee is a novelist who builds fantastical worlds informed by her unique sensibility.
1. Life
Choi Sang-hee was born in 1972 in Jeonju, Jeonbuk. She left a career in journalism and relocated to Jeju, where she first became interested in YA while teaching reading and writing to teenagers. Choi made her literary debut in 2011 winning the BIR Blue Fiction Award for Just, Curling. In 2016, she spent three months in Stockholm on an ARKO (Arts Council Korea) author residency program, where Swedish society's structural support for the rights of women, children, adolescents, the disabled, and immigrants left a lasting impression on her work thereafter. Moving from Seoul back to Jeonju, Choi lives in her childhood home, where she has planted flowers in the garden and lives and writes with four cats.
2. Writing
Choi Sang-hee's writing is hailed as expanding the boundaries of YA literature. Set in unusual times and spaces, the spontaneous meetings within that world as viewed through the author's original thought and sensibility make for fantastical and unique creations. Regular keywords in Choi's work include minorities, women, environment, exclusion and violence, empathy and solidarity, and fantasy. These are a constant from her earliest works published in 2011, Just, Curlingand Rooftop Superstar, starring unconventional characters and minorities. In 2014, her short story collection Del Mundomarked the beginning of the author's style bending time and space, where reality and fantasy coexist in a world now recognized as the "Choi Sang-hee Universe." Since then the author has directed her interest towards feminism and the problems faced by social minorities in such works as Hani and Coco, B's World, Witnessed by Datda, and Maryeong's World, zooming in on violence, discrimination, and the solidarity of women standing up to it. Choi's fantastical imagination takes full rein in these collections, written as straight-up fantasy and SF. Inspired by specific, real-life events and social phenomena, Choi's science fiction is characterized by her peerless fantastical style and point of view that take these events and transpose them into a completely new kind of world. This creation is the starting point from which Choi's work gazes at, imagines, and discusses what lies beyond.
Reference
청소년 소설
Just, Curling 그냥, 컬링(BIR Publishing Co., Ltd. 비룡소, 2011)
Rooftop Superstar 옥탑방 슈퍼스타(Hanibook 한겨레틴틴, 2011)
Son of the Great Detective명탐정의 아들(BIR Publishing Co., Ltd. 비룡소, 2012)
Kant'sHouse칸트의 집(BIR Publishing Co., Ltd. 비룡소, 2013)
Children of Andromeda 안드로메다의 아이들(Hanibook 한겨레틴틴, 2014)
Del Mundo 델 문도(Sakyejul Publishing Ltd 사계절, 2014)
The Sea, Girls, or Kisses 바다, 소녀 혹은 키스(Sakyejul Publishing Ltd 사계절, 2017)
Hani and Coco 하니와 코코(BIR Publishing Co., Ltd. 비룡소, 2017)
B's World B의 세상(Munhakdongne Publishing Corp., 문학동네, 2019)
Maryeong's World 마령의 세계(Changbi Publishers, Inc. 창비, 2021)
Witnessed by Datda 닷다의 목격(Sakyejul Publishing Ltd 사계절, 2021)
Kai'sChoice카이의 선택(Changbi Publishers, Inc. 창비, 2022)
Eyelashes, or How to Find Lost Sleep 속눈썹, 혹은 잃어버린 잠을 찾는 방법(dolbegae 돌베개, 2023)
Embracing the Universe 우주를 껴안는 기분(dolbegae 돌베개, 2024)
Seventeen, Seventeen 세븐틴 세븐틴 (Co-author, Sakyejul Publishing Ltd 사계절, 2015)
The Cry of Existence 존재의 아우성(Co-author, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp., 문학동네, 2015)
Vengeance Is Mine 복수는 나의 것(Co-author, Totobook 탐, 2016)
That Night We Shared a Secret 그날 밤 우리는 비밀을(Co-author, Woori School 우리학교, 2018)
Frequency of Anxiety 불안의 주파수(Co-author, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp., 문학동네, 2018)
Smile for You 웃음을 선물할게(Co-author, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 창비, 2019)
Moro's Tomorrow 모로의 내일(Co-author, Sakyejul Publishing Ltd 사계절, 2022)
49.5℃ First Love 첫사랑49.5℃ (Co-author, Totobook 탐, 2022)
No More Acorns 더 이상 도토리는 없다(Co-author, dolbegae 돌베개, 2022)
Surpassing Myself 나를 초월한 기분(Co-author, Little Mountain Publishing Co. 낮은산, 2024)
에세이
Summer, Kyoto 여름, 교토(lalalabeach 해변에서 랄랄라, 2019)
Glacier-Flavored Apple 빙하 맛의 사과(lalalabeach 해변에서 랄랄라, 2019)
Forests and Sleep 숲과 잠 (lalalabeach 해변에서 랄랄라, 2020)
How Apricot Feels 살구의 마음 (lalalabeach 해변에서 랄랄라, 2023)
Reference
Kang Su-hwan, "Literary Imagination and Fantasy Against the World: A Study of Choi Sang-hee," in 2024 KBBY Author Studies, Korean Board on Books for Young People (KBBY), 2024
강수환, <세계에 맞서는 문학적 상상력과 환상성_최상희 작가 연구>, KBBY 2024 작가 연구 자료집, KBBY, 2024
Kim Seo-jeong, "I felt like it was enough," Oct 12, 2014. The Hankyoreh
김서정, <“이만하면 됐다는 생각이 들었다”>, 한겨레 2014, 10, 12
Won Jong-chan, "The Seduction of Short Stories, the Limit of Novels: Choi Sang-hee's YA Fictoin," in The Old Future of Children's Literature, Changbi, 2020
원종찬, <단편의 매혹, 장편의 한계: 최상희의 청소년소설>, 아동문학의 오래된 미래, 창비, 2020
Profile information provided by the Arts Council Korea (ARKO)
LTI Korea 
DLKL 
SIWF 