Love in the Big City

Love in the Big City is the joyous and moving debut novel of Sang Young Park, a startling new talent from South Korea, where it was a surprise runaway bestseller that hit the top five lists of all the major bookstores and went into nine printings. We have an early quote from Alexander Chee in which he names Sang Young Park as his "new favorite writer" and plan to approach writers like R.O. Kwon, Kevin Kwan, Brandon Taylor, Andrea Lawlor, Andrew Sean Greer, and others for quotes. Actor Daniel K. Isaac is an early fan, and there is already early TV/film interest. We plan to make this a big title for indie booksellers and will make a concentrated effort for an Indies Introduce pick. This book is perfect for fans of Sayaka Murata's style, which found many champions at indies. We will pitch Sang Young Park for major profiles and review coverage as a brilliant voice representing a different kind of Korean literature than often appears in English translation. With its unapologetically queer characters, Park's book was particularly popular among young readers, and we expect this will be the case in the United States as well. After the unprecedented box office success of the Oscar Award-winning film Parasite, American audiences are primed for this novel that explores the backstreets of Seoul's bars, restaurants, and nightlife. We have translation rights to the novel and have made it a major new title on our rights list. We have already sold German rights to Suhrkamp and Dutch rights to Das Mag. Deborah Smith, translator of Han Kang and Bandi, originally acquired the English translation for Tilted Axis Press in the UK. Anton Hur translated the novel and is very well-connected in the translation and media worlds.