Juhea Kim Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Juhea Kim is a literary fiction author who is originally from Incheon, Korea but grew up in Portland Oregon since she was nine years old. She got a degree in Archaeology and Art from Princeton Universityand while at it also got a certificate in French.

She made her debut when she published “Beasts of a Little Land” in 2021. Her work has been published in several prominent magazines such as Dispatches from Annares anthology, Granta, Portland Monthly, Slice, The Independent, Zyzzyva, The Massachusetts Review and Times Literary Supplement among several others.
Aside from her writing, she is also the editor and founder of online magazine “Peaceful Dumpling” that covers ecological literature and sustainable lifestyle.
Over the years, she has received many fellowships from the likes of Arizona State University, Regional Arts & Culture Council and the Bread Load Environmental Writers’ Conference among several others.

She usually works with the United Talent Agency and the Brandt & Hochman Literary Agency.

Kim learned to read and write twice. The first time she did it was looking over her seven year old’s sister and then when she moved to the United States with her family and had to learn the English alphabet.

Even though the common misconception is that children absorb new languages in no time, it took her almost a year before she could understand a few sentences. Once she had the grasp of two languages, she became fascinated with the contradictory but very distinct values in each.

From this came the drive to try to define how language determines the human experience. Over the years, she has written both nonfiction and fiction works as she attempted to answer the many questions in her mind.

She believes that she writes to awaken the conscience of her readers just like Franz Kafka, one of her favorite authors, said he did.

Through her nonfiction work, Juhea Kim explores themes of conservation, sustainability and climate change. Aside from the love of literature, nature has always been a lifelong constant. She is also an avid hiker, ethical vegan, nature photographer, plastic vigilante and composting enthusiast.

Kim has also spoken on different stages such as at Good Goods, Princeton University, Athleta, and Saks Fifth Avenue on sustainable entrepreneurship. Even though she mostly writes in English, she reads a lot of French and Korean literature as she likes to teach herself new languages.

In these and other hobbies, she loves to get some help from Kili and Zeus, her two rescue/assistant cats. Most of the year, she can be found living in Portland, Oregon in a solar powered home.

Juhea Kim’s novel “Beasts of a Little Land” is set in occupied Korea in 1917. The lead in the story is an impoverished local hunter who is about to starve and rescues a stranded Japanese officer that is attacked by a tiger. Their fates are connected from that very instant resulting in a relationship that spans more than fifty years.

Following the event, Jade, a young girl is sold to a courtesan school run by Miss Silver. Her family was in desperate straits but by selling her they know her social status will forever be cemented in the lowest strata of society.

When she makes friends with JungHo, an orphan boy who makes a living as a beggar on the streets of the capital, they develop a bond stronger than that of siblings.

As they mature into adulthood Jade starts working as an in demand performer and soon has a new lover who comes from the upper classes. In the meantime JungHo decides to join the fight for independence through armed revolution.

From the battles raging in the boreal forests of Manchuria to the glamor of a modernizing Seoul, no one writes better than Kim. She unveils a world where beasts take all manner of shapes, friends turn into enemies, heroes are persecuted and enemies turn into saviors.

“The Biggest House on Earth” by Juhea Kim tells of a strange man that was born on the banks of a muddy creek under a bridge.
He was the son of a beggar that was illiterate and only knew his name was Noma. He did not know his last name and nobody knew how the name Noma had even come about.

As a boy, he used to plead with and beg his father to give him a name but his father insisted that he was Noma just like him. When pushed further he used to tell his son that maybe you will be “Little Noma.”