Shin Kyung-sook

Shin Kyung-sook is a South Korean novelist whose fiction explores family, memory, loss, and modern Korean history. Her novels include Please Look After Mom and The Court Dancer.

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Please Look After Mom: A novel by Shin Kyung-sook about a family confronting its mother's disappearance and the care it failed to recognize. Its shifting family perspectives made it her international breakthrough.
Jeongeup: A city in North Jeolla Province, South Korea, with surrounding rural communities. Shin Kyung-sook grew up in a village near this city.
Man Asian Literary Prize: A literary award for works of Asian fiction, presented from 2007 to 2012. Please Look After Mom won its inaugural award in 2007.
Motherhood in literature: The representation of mothers, maternal relationships, and caregiving in literary works. Please Look After Mom centers on the emotional and social work of motherhood.
Plagiarism in literature: The uncredited use of another writer's language or ideas in literary work. A 2015 accusation against Shin prompted a public debate about literary borrowing.
The Court Dancer: A historical novel by Shin Kyung-sook about a Korean court dancer taken to France in the late nineteenth century. It extends her fiction into Korea's encounters with foreign powers and cultures.
South Korean literature: Literature written in Korea's southern state since its establishment in 1948. Her career belongs to the postwar literary culture of South Korea.
Kim Ji-young: A South Korean literary translator who translated Shin Kyung-sook's work into English. Her translation helped bring Please Look After Mom to English-language readers.
South Korean women writers: Women who write literature in South Korea across genres and generations. Her career forms part of a wider history of women's literary authorship.
Korean literary controversy of 2015: A public dispute over plagiarism allegations involving several South Korean writers and publishers. The controversy surrounding her story 'Legend' became its most prominent episode.