Baek Sehee

With I Want to Die but I Still Want to Eat Tteokbokki, Baek Sehee turned her therapy transcripts into one of the most unexpectedly powerful books to come out of Korea in recent years. Part memoir, part conversation, the book chronicles her sessions with a psychiatrist as she navigates dysthymia — persistent mild depression — alongside the everyday pleasures and pressures of life in Seoul.

What makes the book extraordinary is its radical honesty. Baek doesn't perform recovery or offer tidy epiphanies; she sits with ambiguity, contradiction, and the strange coexistence of despair and appetite. The title itself — at once darkly funny and achingly sincere — captures something true about modern life that resonated with millions of readers across Asia and beyond. She writes about mental health without melodrama, and about the small joys that persist even in the fog.