6 titles, most popular first
In 1997, Yong-gu, a man with a developmental disability, lives happily with his six-year-old daughter Ye-sung and promises to buy her a Sailor Moon backpack. After a tragic accident involving a police commissioner's young daughter, he is wrongly arrested for her death and sent to prison, where his cellmates at first look down on him.
In a South Korean village near a U.S. military base, local lives are shaped by the base's presence. Chang-guk makes his home in a rusting, abandoned Air Force bus with his mother, who teaches him English and keeps writing to his father in America, though every letter is sent back. Nearby are Eun-ok, a girl with a damaged eye, and a lonely boy, Jihum.
In 19th-century Korea, Jang Seung-eop, later known as Owon, begins life as a wandering drifter with a gift for drawing and copying other artists' work. Urged to find a style of his own, he struggles through drink, temper and hard years, while the country around him is caught between China and Japan.
In 16th-century Joseon, where class decides a person's fate, Hwang Jin-yi is raised as an aristocrat until she learns she was born illegitimate. Stripped of her noble status, she leaves her old life behind to become a gisaeng, while Nomi, a longtime family servant, quietly loves her.
Overthrown by his uncle, Grand Prince Suyang, the teenage king of Joseon is stripped of his title, renamed Prince Nosan and sent into exile. Eom Heung-do, chief of a poor mountain village in Yeongwol, hopes that hosting an exiled nobleman will bring his people good fortune, and his village is chosen to receive Nosan, who arrives with his loyal maid Mae-hwa.
In 1925, with Korea under Japanese rule, Princess Deokhye, the 13-year-old daughter of Joseon's royal family, is sent to Japan for her schooling. Longing for home, she tries again and again to return, but each attempt is blocked by Han Taek-soo, a general loyal to Japan.
