Seo Su-Jin is the author of Korean Teachers. Born and raised in Seoul, Su-jin received her BA in Korean literature from Ewha Womans University and her MA in creative writing from Myongji University. She is a certified Korean language lecturer and has taught at several universities in Seoul. Her debut novel Korean Teachers won the 25th Hankyoreh Literature Prize in 2020. In 2021, she published the novella Gold Rush as well as the novel Yujin and Dave in Hyundae Munhak magazine. Su-jin now lives in Sydney, Australia.
“But in Korean Teachers, Seo’s debut novel translated into English by Elizabeth Buehler, education is portrayed as a service industry—with customer satisfaction as the main objective. While it may well resonate with certain segments of Western academia, it also echoes such other East Asian novels like Convenience Store Woman about everyday people going about their everyday lives.”
Asian Review of Books, 17 August 2022
“South Korea’s class struggles have similarly been the subject of Oscar-winning film Parasite (2019) and Netflix hit Squid Game (2021). Korean Teachers is far less dramatic, but is nevertheless an uncomfortable read in which the teachers are victims of their own personal demons as they struggle to survive.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5, Straits Times, 2 July 2022