Sang Young Park

Sang Young Park is a South Korean author whose debut novel Love in the Big City (2019) announced a distinctive, witty, and unabashedly queer voice in contemporary Korean literature — a book about a young gay man navigating love, friendship, illness, and the texture of Seoul life with a frankness and warmth that felt genuinely new.

The novel's episodic structure traces its narrator's relationships, beginning with his female best friend and moving through a series of lovers, with equal parts affection and unsentimental clarity. Translated into English by Anton Hur, it became an international success and was longlisted for the International Booker Prize. Park writes with the confidence of someone who knows exactly what story they need to tell.