Review: Upcoming Korean translated novel offers cozy escape into lost art of letter writing
JEDDAH: Baek Seungyeon’s debut novel, “The Seoul Letter Shop,” is a story about letters, the companionship born of ink, and the connections that can grow in unexpected places.
Translated from Korean by Clare Richards and forthcoming from Harper Perennial in October, I picked the novel as my first read for Women in Translation Month, held globally each August to celebrate women’s voices and stories from across languages and cultures.
At 28, Woo Hyo-young has put her own dreams on hold after her older sister, Hyo-min, leaves the family in financial difficulty. When letters of apology from her estranged sister begin arriving, Hyo-young chooses to leave her hometown and takes a job at Geulwol, a small letter shop in Seoul run by a former classmate.
At the heart of the shop is a pen-pal service that lets customers exchange anonymous letters with strangers, creating connections between people who might otherwise never meet.
