Counsel Culture

Kim Hye-jin is an award-winning author from Daegu, South Korea. She won the JoongAng Literature Award in 2013 for Joongang Station, the Shin Dong-yup Prize for Literature in 2018 for Concerning My Daughter, and the Daesan Literary Award in 2020 for The Work of No.9. She was also the Special Award Laureate of the 4th Lee Hochul Literary Prize for Peace in 2020.Jamie Chang is a literary translator. Her translation of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 was longlisted for National Book Awards 2020 Translated Literature. She is the recipient of the Daesan Foundation Translation Grant and a three-time recipient of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea Grant.

“Melancholy and ruminative yet possessed of a quiet energy, Kim’s tale leads Haesoo toward the realization that, more often than not, what we yearn to be is who we already are, that life is less a matter of becoming than of revealing . . . .A simple, moving story of outcasts coming together.” —Kirkus Reviews“Kim does not offer pat solutions or mawkish sentimentality; rather, Haesoo’s attempts to care for Sei and Turnip provide a framework for her defensiveness and self-pity to give way to atonement and healing. The result is an appealing meditation on personal and professional ethics.” — Publisher’s Weekly"Award-winning Korean author Kim Hye-jin's sublime sophomore title-in-translation, Counsel Culture, is the spare, intense study of a woman in crisis, a subject Kim so strikingly presented in her 2022 Anglophone debut, Concerning My Daughter. She reunites with translator Jamie Chang, who again skillfully mirrors Kim's clean, affecting prose." — Terry Hong, Shelf Awareness“Kim’s beautifully introspective novel thoughtfully explores the time it takes to process difficult experiences and the restoration that can happen when people open up to each other without expectation.” —Booklist“A heartwarming story of a middle-aged woman who rescues a sick cat and comforts a child through difficult times, set in the chilling tale of a man who takes his own life because of her. The two veins entwine and cling relentlessly, staying with the reader beyond the covers." —Cho Nam-joo, author of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982“What do a midlife counselor, a 10-year-old girl and a couple of feral cats have in common? This unique, gritty and heartfelt story of loss, friendship and redemption, of course!” —Karla J. Strand, Ms. Magazine