Kim Un-su

Un-su Kim is a South Korean novelist whose crime fiction has attracted international attention for its combination of genre propulsion with genuine literary sophistication. His novel The Plotters (2016) — translated into English by Sora Kim-Russell — is a stylish, melancholy thriller about the secret world of professional assassins in contemporary Seoul, but it is really a meditation on solitude, purpose, and what it means to dedicate a life to a particular skill in a world that has no place for you.

The novel balances action and contemplation with impressive control, and its central figure — a laconic assassin who has spent his entire life in a compound, learning his trade — has an unexpectedly moving interiority. Kim writes literary crime fiction with considerable ambition and skill.