Excerpt from THE SEOUL LETTER SHOP by Baek Seungyeon:
PROLOGUE
Dear Hyoyoung,
Hyoyoung-ah. I can’t believe this is already the fifth letter I’m sending you. Even though I find it so hard to call or text, whenever I put pen to paper, I always have something to say. Weird, huh?
Everything’s fine with me. Sending letters that never get replies feels like watching the hot mist of my breath vanish into the air. But if I don’t exhale like this, I’ll suffocate, and that’s why I keep writing to you.
Hyoyoung-ah.
I’m doing nothing, but time still passes safely – or perhaps I should say indifferently – on by. I put everything I had into my studies, and spent my whole life racing against the clock, afraid I’d fall behind. But turns out that taking it slowly never killed anyone.
There’s something curious and tranquil about an uneventful life.
It took me 32 years to realise this fact.
Are Umma and Appa doing well? I still haven’t written to either of them. I’m worried they might read this before you do. They’d reply at once. That’s why I can’t send them letters. And why I scrawled your name so conspicuously on the front. For your eyes only. After all, you’ll never write back to me.
I’m staying in Ulsan right now. One of my old elementary school friends is putting me up. I won’t be here more than a week, so a letter wouldn’t reach me anyway. If Umma and Appa try to write, make sure to explain.
Hyoyoung-ah.
When I cut the lights and lie alone in bed, I feel like a plankton floating through the ocean. Or an unidentified bacterium drifting inside a cell. If I’d been born without eyes, without ears, without a mouth, I could have lived my life without harming a soul.
There I go, getting all depressing again. I thought about starting this letter from scratch and even went to take out another sheet of paper, but I hardly have any left. If I cross out what I’ve written, I’m worried I’ll look like an even worse sister, so I’ll just leave the letter as it is.
It’s chilly outside, so make sure not to catch cold. You can wear the winter clothes I left at home.
Take care, Hyoyoung-ah.
From, Hyomin
EVEN SUNLIGHT HAS A SCENT
1
‘What do we do? Your sister’s been scammed!’
One day last October, Hyoyoung had returned home to find her mother sunk in a heap at the doorway. A single maple leaf clung to her shopping bag. Neither of them thought to take off their shoes.
Leaving herself no time for tears, her mother continued, ‘How could this happen to her?’
Hyoyoung wondered that herself. Since preschool, her older sister’s academic brilliance had made her the family’s pride and joy. Hyomin had breezed into the gifted class at school and collected maths trophies like it was nothing at all. In middle school, it was taken for granted that she would rank top across every subject. And so, when not long ago a colleague of hers suggested they open an academy together, the whole family chipped in. How could she, of all people, fall prey to a scam like this?
The look on their father’s face as he stood in the hallway, having raced over from the laundrette, was an even greater sight to behold. It was of someone who’d never imagined in his wildest dreams that his Seoul National University-graduate daughter – who’d not only studied at the prestigious institution as an undergraduate, but as a postgraduate too – would ever fall from grace. That was why, when Hyomin had announced her intention to give up her postgraduate studies and open her own hagwon, he hadn’t thought twice about it. Clever Hyomin must’ve known what she was doing.
‘Hyomin’s not answering my calls.’
Hyoyoung’s father fought for breath as he tugged his phone from his pocket. The three of them were crammed into the tiny entranceway like sardines. Hyoyoung, bags under her eyes after two straight days of filming, was numb. Her older sister’s disappearance felt like a dream.
Three days later, Hyomin called their mother to let her know she was okay, before switching off her phone entirely. Though their father had been struggling to make ends meet as it was, he’d taken out a loan to invest in Hyomin’s hagwon, and was now running the laundrette seven days a week rather than six. Their mother had borrowed money from her brother and was working part-time, delivering banchan side dishes to repay him. Hyoyoung, meanwhile, did nothing. She was too busy shooting the film for her graduation project. Occasionally a message would arrive in their family group chat asking if anyone had heard from Hyomin, but she didn’t reply. Hyoyoung thought her family was overreacting. Their uncle, the one her mum had borrowed money from, floated the idea that perhaps Hyomin hadn’t quit post-graduate school of her own accord but because she simply wasn’t cut out for it. That same day, Hyoyoung’s mother tripped on the stairs while out on a delivery and injured her hip.
‘Going on all that time about how she was the “rock of the family” . . . Look at us now! See the state you’re in, Umma, and Hyomin meanwhile has done a runner, leaving us to clean up her shit.’
Witnessing her mother lying in her sickbed was the last straw for Hyoyoung. Her sister had always been so exceptional, far out-stripping her peers – maybe that meant she had no idea how to handle failure? Even so, how could a person in their thirties abandon their family like this? Hyoyoung, meanwhile, decided to give up on shooting her film so she could take care of their mum. The funding she’d secured went to another project, and her crew, naturally, moved over to that same project too. Did she resent Hyomin? It was hard to say. In truth, since her sister’s disappearance, she’d lost all faith in her own work. It had dried up instantaneously, almost as if self-confidence was something she shared communally with her sister. Her sister, her film – both had lost their sense of direction. That was when Hyomin’s letters started turning up. The envelopes were always addressed to her.
From the book: THE SEOUL LETTER SHOP by Baek Seungyeon. Original work copyright © 2024 by Baek Seungyeon. English translation copyright © Clare Richards, 2026. Reprinted courtesy of Harper Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Translator: Clare Richards
A moving story of loss and connection, The Seoul Letter Shop is a poignant exploration of the distance that separates us‑and the words that just might bring us home.
At twenty‑eight, Woo Hyo‑young has mastered the art of silence‑especially when it comes to her sister, Hyo‑min. After years of shouldering the burden left behind by Hyo‑min's betrayal, and sacrificing her own dream of becoming a film director, Hyo‑young is worn thin. When letters of apology from her estranged sister begin to arrive, each one a reminder of everything she's lost, Hyo‑young does the only thing she can: she runs.
Landing in Seoul with nowhere to go, Hyo‑young accepts a quiet position at Geulwol, a tucked‑away letter shop run by her former classmate, Seon‑ho. Surrounded by the quiet rustle of paper and the comfort of handwritten notes, Hyo‑young begins to witness the power of letters to bridge distances, mend wounds, and reveal hidden truths.
Then she meets Yeonggwang, a warm yet guarded webtoon artist and regular customer at the shop. Through their growing bond‑and the stories of strangers who bravely write what they cannot say aloud‑Hyo‑young begins to confront her own past.
As the seasons pass, Geulwol letter shop becomes more than a refuge; it becomes a mirror. One that reflects Hyo‑young's unspoken pain, the beauty of forgiveness, and the tender courage it takes to pick up a pen and finally speak up.
Women's Fiction Friendship [ Harper Perennial, On Sale: October 6, 2026, Hardcover / e-Book / audiobook, ISBN: 9780063442672 / eISBN: 9780063442665 ]
Baek Seungyeon is Korean writer based in Seoul. She majored in Creative Writing and Literature and is a rising talent first discovered through the Munhaksasan Writing Program in 2017. She is the author of the debut novel ‘The Seoul Letter Shop’, a celebration of the lost art of letter-writing and the importance of finding connection in an increasingly isolated world. The novel is published in Korea by Toyou’s Dream in 2024 and will be translated into English, Italian, French, Spanish, Dutch and Finnish.
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