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They Said “Annyeong” / Whale Snows Down / A Nation of Youth / Maldduks scrap

by Sarah K. H. Yoogo link November 27, 2025

 

They Said “Annyeong”

by Kim Ae-ran 

Munhakdongne, 2025, 320 pages

Whale Snows Down

by Kim Bo-Young 

Rabbit Hole, 2025, 284 pages

In her first short story collection in eight years, Kim Ae-ran presents seven razor-sharp stories that explore the concept of space: what it means to have it, to violate it, to lose it. In “House Party,” a tense get-together reveals the subconscious biases that lurk within the guests’ minds, while in “Good Neighbor,” the narrator is forced to confront their complex emotions when a family they’d always considered beneath them moves to a nicer apartment. These stories delve into how the spaces we occupy define not only how we live our lives, but also how systems and structures affect everyone in surprisingly different ways.In this imaginative and poignant collection, Kim Bo-Young meditates on the value of lost things and interrogates the very standard by which objects and organisms are assigned worth. The titular story “Whale Snows Down” (tr. Sophie Bowman) is narrated from the point of view of a deep-sea animal and shines a spotlight on the ecological destruction happening today. Kim also offers her unique take on topics such as death and AI in “Low-budget Project,” in which an indie game developer pro-cesses a collaborator’s death through an augmented reality game, and “Even If It Is Just a Shell,” in which the narrator’s digital self gets the chance to spend time with a deceased sibling. 

A Nation of Youth

by Won-pyung Sohn 
Dazzling, 2025, 292 pages 

Maldduks

by Kim Hong 
Hanibooks, 2025, 312 pages

Won-pyung Sohn, author of international hits such as Almond (tr. Sandy Joosun Lee) and Counterattacks at Thirty (tr. Sean Lin Halbert), returns with her newest full-length novel, A Nation of Youth. Welcome to Sycamore Island, a paradise for ultra-wealthy seniors. In Sohn’s imagined future, a manmade island in the middle of the South Pacific serves as a lavish enclave for the top 1% of retirees, where sprightly youth cater to their every need. When twenty-nine-year-old Yoo Nara is selected to work at the country’s largest senior care center, she sees it as her chance to finally leave her dreary life behind and achieve her dream of becoming an actress on Sycamore Island. A Nation of Youth grapples with timely topics such as declining birth rates, aging societies, and the effects of AI and accelerated innovation. The unanimous winner of the 2025 Hankyoreh Literary Award, Maldduks is an action mystery novel by Kim Hong. Legend has it that “maldduks” are “human stakes”—dead people who have been driven into the ground headfirst in the middle of the ocean. When they wash up on shore in droves one day, hapless loan underwriter Jang finds himself locked in a car trunk with no clue as to why. What follows is a string of mishaps and misfortunes as Jang slowly realizes that the only person he can count on is himself. What is the true identity of these maldduks and what do they want from the living? This page-turner of a tale offers an incisive take on capitalism and class. 

 

Writer 필자 소개

Sarah K. H. Yoo

Sarah K. H. Yoo

Sarah K. H. Yoo is a translator and writer based in Korea. Her work has appeared in Litbreak Magazine and the National Centre for Writing website. She is represented by Safae El-Ouahabi of RCW Literary Agency.

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