# The 24 Best Korean Novels in Translation

> Prize-shortlisted literary fiction, cozy bookshop reads and a couple of genuinely creepy thrillers, all carried into English by translators who deserve a bow.

*By YPB Team · Published November 1, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-24-best-korean-novels-in-translation*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **The Vegetarian** — score 1000/1000
   Han Kang's novel about a woman whose refusal to eat meat unravels her family, winner of the 2016 International Booker Prize.
2. **Human Acts** — score 845/1000
   Han Kang's novel of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, told through the victims and survivors of the massacre.
3. **The Dallergut Dream Department Store** — score 595/1000
   Lee Mi-ye's whimsical bestseller about a shop where sleepers buy dreams.
4. **Untold Night and Day** — score 534/1000
   Bae Suah's dreamlike novel following a former actress through one long, shifting night in Seoul.
5. **Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop** — score 534/1000
   Hwang Bo-reum's gentle bestseller about a burned-out woman who opens a neighborhood bookshop in Seoul.
6. **The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly** — score 534/1000
   Sun-mi Hwang's modern fable of a battery hen who escapes the coop to hatch an egg of her own.
7. **The Dwarf** — score 463/1000
   Cho Se-hui's linked-story novel about a family of evicted laborers during Korea's industrial boom.
8. **The Good Son** — score 463/1000
   You-jeong Jeong's thriller narrated by a young man who wakes up beside his murdered mother.
9. **Concerning My Daughter** — score 463/1000
   Kim Hye-jin's novel of a mother wrestling with her daughter's relationship with another woman.
10. **Love in the Big City** — score 463/1000
   Sang Young Park's funny, aching novel about a young gay man's loves and friendships in Seoul.
11. **The Hole** — score 379/1000
   Hye-young Pyun's psychological thriller about a paralyzed man at the mercy of his mother-in-law, a Shirley Jackson Award winner.
12. **I Have the Right to Destroy Myself** — score 379/1000
   Kim Young-ha's dark debut novel about a man who assists people seeking to end their lives.
13. **Almond** — score 379/1000
   Won-pyung Sohn's coming-of-age novel about a boy born unable to feel emotions.
14. **At Dusk** — score 379/1000
   Hwang Sok-yong's novel weighing the cost of Korea's breakneck development through an architect's memories.
15. **The Disaster Tourist** — score 379/1000
   Yun Ko-eun's satirical eco-thriller about a travel agent sent to review a resort built on catastrophe.
16. **Greek Lessons** — score 379/1000
   Han Kang's quiet novel about a woman who has lost her speech and the teacher who is losing his sight.
17. **Whale** — score 379/1000
   Cheon Myeong-kwan's picaresque epic of ambition and excess, shortlisted for the 2023 International Booker Prize.
18. **The Square** — score 379/1000
   Choi In-hun's 1960 classic about a man caught between North and South Korea who belongs to neither.
19. **Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982** — score 278/1000
   Cho Nam-joo's million-selling novel tracing one ordinary woman's life through everyday sexism in Korea.
20. **I'll Be Right There** — score 278/1000
   Kyung-sook Shin's novel of four students bound by friendship amid the protests of 1980s Seoul.
21. **The Plotters** — score 278/1000
   Un-su Kim's noir about a hitman raised in a library of assassins who begins to question his orders.
22. **The Guest** — score 0/1000
   Hwang Sok-yong's novel about a massacre in a North Korean village during the Korean War, told by its ghosts.
23. **We Do Not Part** — score 0/1000
   Han Kang's novel confronting the Jeju massacre of 1948 through two friends and a snowbound journey.
24. **Please Look After Mom** — score 0/1000
   Kyung-sook Shin's bestseller about a family searching Seoul for their mother after she vanishes in a subway station.

Tags: books, asia, fiction, korea, translation