K-Book Trends -

Search word : "Munhakdongne", Search result : 260

[TREND / SPECIAL PROJECT]

Special Project [Award-winning Korean Books ①] Literary Awards: A Message of the Times Major Korean literary award-winning books in 2024 2024.11.04 Writer Han Kang, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2024 Where does the authority of the Nobel Prize in Literature derive from? Is it the huge prize of 1.3 billion won, or the long history of 124 years? Or is it the exceptional life stories of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite? Well, it’s probably a combination of all of these elements, but more than that, it’s the message that holds the secret to its long-standing authority. The Nobel Prize in Literature has always pointed out exactly what we, as a species, need to think about right now, and where we should be headed together. Each year, hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of people around the world share the same curiosity when the Prize is announced. They ask themsel...

VOL.76 / 2024.11

[TREND / EXPORT CASE]

New Trends in Korean Literature

Export Case New Trends in Korean Literature 2024.10.07 It’s important to be ahead of the pack in global publishing; to find the new trends and to be future looking in order to be successful. I have always been an explorer, a seeker of the new, while travelling professionally and personally, and that has led me to discover Korean literature more than a decade ago. The first books to break through were literary masterpieces Please Look After Mom (Changbi Publishers) by Shin Kyung-Sook and The Vegetarian (Changbi Publishers) by Han Kang. After the initial introduction of Korean books to global readers who had never heard of them, let alone read them, I introduced mysteries and thrillers which are already super popular in the World English and global markets. So, readers of Steig Larrsen’s mega-bestseller, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, devoured Jeong You-Jeong’s The Good Son (EunHaeng NaMu Publishing). J.M. Lee’s The Investigation (EunHae...

VOL.75 / 2024.10

[TREND / TOPIC]

Korean Readers’ Picks in the First Half of 2024

Topic Korean Readers’ Picks in the First Half of 2024 2024.09.02 According to the “2023 National Reading Survey” announced by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism in Korea, the overall reading rate was observed to be 43.0%, the lowest since the survey was initiated in 1994. This means that 6 out of 10 adults don’t even read a single e-book or audiobook, let alone a paper book. The shrinking of the reading population, which forms the foundation for the publishing market, and the aging population have been issues in Korea for quite a long time. However, it was indeed a shocking figure for the publishing industry as it expected to see a steady increase in the reading population since it enjoyed a boom during the pandemic compared to other industries.In the first half of the year, the reduction in newly published titles, driven by a contracting publishing market, alongside the enduring popularity of long-time bestsellers, played a si...

VOL.74 / 2024.09

[INFORMATION / NEW BOOKS]

The Mood We Want for Tomorrow

New Books The Mood We Want for Tomorrow 2026.09 Kang Bora, Kwon Seok, et al., Even Wanting It to Be Fun Is Asking Too Much, Munhakdongne, 2026. Even Wanting It to Be Fun Is Asking Too Much is a short story anthology published by Munhakdongne since 2023. The anthology's theme is “labor.” Its editor is novelist Jang Kang-myoung, a writer who moves between reality and literature to capture a self-portrait of Korean society, sometimes sharply and sometimes with humor. In planning the labor fiction series, he set the rule that, driven by the belief that “more works capturing today's labor scene need to be written,” the stories should record the “here and now” rather than decades past or a distant future, and should be written realistically, through legwork. Jang Kang-myoung, together with writers who shared this vision, formed a literary collective cal...

VOL.98 / 2026.09

[TREND / TOPIC]

Dreaming of a Different Peace as We Depart from Houyhnhnms

Topic Dreaming of a Different Peace as We Depart from Houyhnhnms 2024.08.05 The 2024 Seoul International Book Fair (SIBF) has concluded with great success. During the peak hours when the crowd surged, I found myself in a state of constant anxiety, hoping that everything would go smoothly. As visitors queued up, stretching so far that the end of the line was out of sight, and the temperature inside rose, making the air conditioning struggle, my heart tightened. Yet, now I breathe a sigh of relief that the event ended without major incidents. Main posters of 2024 SIBF Challenges in preparing for the 2024 Seoul International Book Fair This year’s preparation for the Seoul International Book Fair was fraught with challenges. Traditionally held in Hall A on the first floor of COEX, we were informed last year to reduce the event...

VOL.73 / 2024.08

[TREND / ONE-LINER QUOTES]

From a Tiny Room to a Funeral Home, and to the Heaven of Magma

One-Liner Quotes From a Tiny Room to a Funeral Home,and to the Heaven of Magma A Poet’s Pick 2024.08.05 Kim Yu-Tae is a poet and reporter in the Art & Culture Department at Maeil Business Newspaper. He wrote the poetry collection, Nothing Happened Except for That One (Munhakdongne, 2021), and the prose collection about banned books, Bad Books (Geulhangari, 2024). A Western scholar once wrote that language reveals what has been, and what has not been, and above all, what has “ceased” to exist. Here, the language can be the names of those who once existed, or sometimes the sentences left behind in the form of poetry. In this respect, I have long thought of the posthumous poetry collection as a “rusty mirror” in which the departed tried to find and gaze upon their own self-portrait ahead of time.The poetry of the dead, contemplated in life by those who are no longer with us, is like a letter from the afterlife to the pre...

VOL.73 / 2024.08

[TREND / KNOWLEDGE]

Korean Publishers’ Efforts to Meet New Readers

Knowledge Korean Publishers’ Efforts to Meet New Readers 2024.08.05 Publishers have been putting the utmost effort into connecting readers, works, and authors. One of the examples was booktalks, where readers meet the author. Booktalks helped publishers expand the horizon of readers’ engagement with works and maintain fanship, but it was not easy to secure new readers. As a large number of booktalks turned contactless after the outbreak of COVID-19, the small influx of new readers fell even more.Meanwhile, as the marketing trend in Korea moved onto pop-up stores, many Generation Z started to take shots, do opening rushes, and leave reviews. This trend has made it a must-do event for companies when launching new products (brands). There were even reviewers who left comments on pop-up stores open in Seongsu-dong (the region in Seoul settled as a hot place among Generation Z as it became the hub of pop-up stores). Where both present and future readers...

VOL.73 / 2024.08

[TREND / TOPIC]

What the “Steady Seller Phenomenon” Means for the Book Market

Topic What the “Steady Seller Phenomenon” Means for the Book Market On books that have reached their 100th print 2024.07.01 The implication of books that hit the 100th print Kim Dong-Sik’s The Grey Man (Yoda Books) recently celebrated its 100th printing in the Korean book market. While the writer’s dramatic leap from a foundry worker to a best-selling writer has been spotlighted, what is perhaps most important is the internal narrative of the short stories contained within. This collection of 24 short stories was selected from the hundreds of short stories he posted to the horror forum of an online community, “Today’s Humor.” It is indeed a kaleidoscope of life’s short stories, sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking. Readers have responded so enthusiastically to the short story collection, which went into its 100th printing in 2017 - 7 years after it was first published, and there are many factors behind this. The factor include the dra...

VOL.72 / 2024.07

[INFORMATION / BEST SELLERS]

The Beginning of Summer: June's Integrated Bestseller List

Best Sellers The Beginning of Summer:June's Integrated Bestseller List 2026.07 Since the March issue, this column has analyzed the bestseller lists of four major bookstore franchises in South Korea: Kyobo Book Centre, Youngpoong Bookstore, Jongno Books, and Arc N Book. While previous analyses focused strictly on brick-and-mortar sales, the charts of online bookstores, which now represent a major pillar of book distribution, are arguably just as important as their offline counterparts. Because all four of these franchises operate online storefronts alongside their physical locations, the upcoming features from the July through October issues will examine comprehensive charts that combine both online and offline data. To kick off this series, we look at the integrated bestseller chart compiled by Kyobo Book Centre, the largest and most influential of the four franchises. During th...

VOL.96 / 2026.07

[INFORMATION / BEST SELLERS]

New Spring, Books Worth Your Attention

Best Sellers New Spring, Books Worth Your Attention 2026.03 As we approach the spring of 2026, the bestseller charts for the second week of February once again demonstrated the enduring power of fiction, with novels claiming six of the top ten spots. For our 2026 feature, we move beyond the digital sphere to focus on brick-and-mortar bookstores, where readers can personally browse the shelves, feel the texture of the printed type, and choose their books through a physical encounter. In South Korea, major franchises occupy the majority of the physical bookstore market. Currently, four main franchises—Kyobo Book Centre, Youngpoong Bookstore, Jongno Books, and Arc N Book—are in competition. We intend to examine the top ten books across these locations, starting with Kyobo Book Centre, which holds the largest number of branches, followed by Y...

VOL.92 / 2026.03

VOL.99/2026.10

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