I had chosen and no law, no gun, no God could stop me now. Only him.
A sleeper hit with over a QUARTER OF A MILLION copies sold
‘Perfect reading for fans of BUTTER and Nobel-Prize winning THE VEGETARIAN’ WATERSTONES
‘A feast for the literary senses’ ANTON HUR, judge of the INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE
A woman sees her man murdered on the street – and time stands still.
Until she cradles his corpse to her chest and carries it home, where she disinfects every inch of skin before seating herself to begin. What happens next reverberates from this realm into the next, where the man is witnessing his own funeral.
Together, the lovers lament a lifetime of working their fingers to the bone in a country sucking everyone dry – but a choice has already been made. The woman is beating them at their own barbaric game, eating and entombing the body in her own where her soulmate will live again.
The word-of-mouth sensation that everyone has an opinion on, HUNGER is a psychologically and philosophically thrilling cult classic that cuts to the very heart of love, money and the things they do to us.
HUNGER was a top bestseller for over half a year, breaking records for literary fiction in South Korea.
—
‘Raw beauty… It will consume you as you consume it’ DEAN ATTA, author of The Black Flamingo
‘Moving and profound… A haunting elegy. I was enraptured’ LING LING HUANG, author of Natural Beauty
‘I savoured every word. A novel of remarkable depth’ AYESHA MANAZIR SIDDIQI, author of The Centre
‘A gutting, unforgettable ode to doomed love’ HENRY HOKE, author of Open Throat
‘Mesmerising… Inject it into my veins again’ IRENOSEN OKOJIE, author of Nudibranch
‘A hefty work of creative genius’ BARBARA ZITWER, author of The Korean Book of Happiness
‘Written with exceptional deftness and profound insight’ MONIKA KIM, author of The Eyes Are the Best Part
‘What a propulsive, strangely tender book… Incredibly moving’ E.K. SATHUE, author of youthjuice
‘Lyrical and dark, delicate and cruel… You will devour this’ JUNG-MYUNG LEE, author of The Investigation
‘Every word of this leaves a delicious, stinging aftertaste’ SUNG RYU, translator of Choi Eun-young
A sleeper hit with over a QUARTER OF A MILLION copies sold
THE KOREAN CULT CLASSIC PHENOMENON
‘Perfect reading for fans of BUTTER and Nobel-Prize winning THE VEGETARIAN’ WATERSTONES
‘A feast for the literary senses’ ANTON HUR, judge of the INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE
A woman sees her man murdered on the street – and time stands still.
Until she cradles his corpse to her chest and carries it home, where she disinfects every inch of skin before seating herself to begin. What happens next reverberates from this realm into the next, where the man is witnessing his own funeral.
Together, the lovers lament a lifetime of working their fingers to the bone in a country sucking everyone dry – but a choice has already been made. The woman is beating them at their own barbaric game, eating and entombing the body in her own where her soulmate will live again.
The word-of-mouth sensation that everyone has an opinion on, HUNGER is a psychologically and philosophically thrilling cult classic that cuts to the very heart of love, money and the things they do to us.
HUNGER was a top bestseller for over half a year, breaking records for literary fiction in South Korea.
—
‘Raw beauty… It will consume you as you consume it’ DEAN ATTA, author of The Black Flamingo
‘Moving and profound… A haunting elegy. I was enraptured’ LING LING HUANG, author of Natural Beauty
‘I savoured every word. A novel of remarkable depth’ AYESHA MANAZIR SIDDIQI, author of The Centre
‘A gutting, unforgettable ode to doomed love’ HENRY HOKE, author of Open Throat
‘Mesmerising… Inject it into my veins again’ IRENOSEN OKOJIE, author of Nudibranch
‘A hefty work of creative genius’ BARBARA ZITWER, author of The Korean Book of Happiness
‘Written with exceptional deftness and profound insight’ MONIKA KIM, author of The Eyes Are the Best Part
‘What a propulsive, strangely tender book… Incredibly moving’ E.K. SATHUE, author of youthjuice
‘Lyrical and dark, delicate and cruel… You will devour this’ JUNG-MYUNG LEE, author of The Investigation
‘Every word of this leaves a delicious, stinging aftertaste’ SUNG RYU, translator of Choi Eun-young
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Reviews
A heart-moving novel
Hunger satisfies every literary appetite and taste bud with its heartbreaking, poetic, one-of-a-kind writing style. A short novel, but a hefty work of creative genius
I savoured every word. This gem of a novel, so slim it could almost be mistaken for a zine, is one of remarkable depth and an expansive exploration of how love can transcend time and space
Desperate tragedy meets raw beauty in this intimate and unflinching love story so specific and vividly rendered that it will consume you as you consume it
What a propulsive, strangely tender book... Incredibly moving
Choi describes life and death in her both lyrical and dark, delicate and cruel voice. You will devour this potentially horrific, beautifully written novel
Hunger delves into the raw desperation of grief... Choi's poignant meditation on loss and heartbreak is written with exceptional deftness and profound insight
Soje brings Choi Jin-young's bestseller about a most extraordinary form of mourning into sharp and satiating clarity. Hunger is a sparse but taut narrative that delivers on an unlikely feast for the literary senses in its shocking premise and precise language
A heart-moving novel
Hunger satisfies every literary appetite and taste bud with its heartbreaking, poetic, one-of-a-kind writing style. A short novel, but a hefty work of creative genius
I savoured every word. This gem of a novel, so slim it could almost be mistaken for a zine, is one of remarkable depth and an expansive exploration of how love can transcend time and space
Desperate tragedy meets raw beauty in this intimate and unflinching love story so specific and vividly rendered that it will consume you as you consume it
What a propulsive, strangely tender book... Incredibly moving
Choi describes life and death in her both lyrical and dark, delicate and cruel voice. You will devour this potentially horrific, beautifully written novel
Hunger delves into the raw desperation of grief... Choi's poignant meditation on loss and heartbreak is written with exceptional deftness and profound insight
Soje brings Choi Jin-young's bestseller about a most extraordinary form of mourning into sharp and satiating clarity. Hunger is a sparse but taut narrative that delivers on an unlikely feast for the literary senses in its shocking premise and precise language
A poignant love story about a mouth that eats its meals, a mouth that whispers love, and a mouth that bites into a lover's body
A gutting, unforgettable ode to doomed love. Which is to say, all love
The true cannibal in the story is not the narrator but the gluttonous society that sucks people's bones dry. Every word of this ultimate love story - painstakingly fed to us by Choi Jin-young and Soje - leaves a delicious, stinging aftertaste
Mesmerising. This is a riveting, dark and strangely beautiful book. Inject it into my veins again
A book as slender and strange as it is moving and profound, Hunger is a haunting elegy where cannibalism is the highest form of devotion, and love has the power to give nourishment to the most impoverished lives. I was enraptured