Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop

Hwang’s novel fits into an emerging genre of Korean fiction known as “healing fiction.” Broadly defined, healing fiction refers to novels that tackle contemporary issues of emotional and mental health, societal pressures, and work-life balance. Unlike the social novel, which looks at a similar scope of issues with the intention of protesting the status quo, healing fiction is intended to comfort the reader and inspire a sense of sympathy.

Healing fiction gained global popularity throughout the 2020s, though it traces its roots back to the Japanese manga and anime genre of iyashikei (healing type) from the 1970s. Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, the rapid economic upswing of countries like Japan and South Korea drove widespread shifts that entrenched corporate culture into everyday life, resulting in the “salaryman” stereotype that arose in Japanese popular culture. While this trend represented the economic optimism of post-war East Asia, it also led to high attrition among white-collar workers, leading to a new social crisis marked by high-stress work environments and physical and mental harm due to overwork. Japan and South Korea saw the rise of complementary terms karoshi and gwarosa, both of which refer to death by overworking, to articulate the growing concern over their approaches to corporate culture.

In South Korea, Western titles like Demian by Herman Hesse and Into the Magic Shop by James R. Doty spoke to readers’ personal experiences in the workforce (Fincher, Alison, et al. “Healing Fiction from Japan and South Korea is Comforting Yet Complex.” Pop Matters, 21 Apr. 2025). Demian is widely considered a precursor to many works of healing fiction since it features a protagonist who has long, introspective conversations with several characters, and this profoundly impacts his life. In 2020, the publication of The Dallergut Dream Department Store by Lee Mi-Ye signaled the emergence of the Korean healing fiction genre.

Many works of healing fiction are set in warm community spaces where characters can connect with likeminded individuals. In contemporary East Asia, this often translates to quaint urban shops like bookstores and cafés. The setting of Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop is similar to the 2010 Japanese novel Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa, which features a young woman who starts working at her uncle’s bookshop in Jinbōchō, a neighborhood commonly associated with publishing houses and used-book stores. 

Nevertheless, the “feel-good” façade of healing fiction can be misleading since many of these stories feature characters who confront unresolved traumas in their lives. The genre typically features protagonists who escape burnout at work and find themselves in situations where they can slow down and reassess their priorities. Some healing novels deploy magical realist elements to catalyze the characters’ healing, such as the 2024 Korean novel, The Marigold Mind Laundry by Jungeun Yun, which features a fabulist laundromat where customers can transform painful memories into clothing stains and wash them from their hearts and minds. Hwang’s novel, on the other hand, fits into the realist mode of healing fiction.