dd's Umbrella

by Jungeun Hwang, e. yaewon (Translator), Alyea Canada (Editor)

Overview

'It's tender and revealing portrait of characters on the margins.’ — Publishers Weekly

From one of Korea’s most celebrated contemporary writers, a novel about queer family-building and resistance in the aftermath of the Candlelight Revolution. 

d, a nonbinary gig worker living in Seoul, briefly escapes the grasp of isolation when they meet dd, only to be ensnared by grief when dd dies in a car accident. As d grapples with personal loss, South Korea reckons with the aftermath of the Sewol ferry disaster that claimed over 300 lives.

This formally inventive novel is composed of two novellas: the first from d’s perspective and the second from that of a writer contemplating a book they may never write. Both figures live on the margins—queer, working-class, and part of nontraditional family structures.

As protests over the Sewol ferry disaster and calls for the president’s impeachment sweep Korea, the novel explores how progressive movements often sideline women and sexual minorities in pursuit of the 'greater cause’. dd’s Umbrella is a meditative and off-centre novel about mourning and revolution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781911284949
Publisher:	Tilted Axis Press
Publication date:	04/15/2025
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Born in 1976, Hwang Jungeun is a leading voice in contemporary Korean literature. She has won many of Korean’s most prestigious awards, including the Daesan Literary Award, Korean Booksellers’ Award, and the Shin Dongyup Prize for Literature. Her novel One Hundred Shadows, described by Han Kang as 'unforgettable,' along with Years and Years, was published in the US in 2024. 

e. yaewon 이예원 translates from and into Korean. She has translated many prominent Korean authors into English, including 2024 Nobel laureate Han Kang, Hwang Jungeun, and Jessica Au. 

Editorial Reviews

‘With reflections on the South Korean government’s chilling response to earlier student demonstrations and the aftermath of the ferry tragedy, Hwang shines an illuminating light on the repression that persists amid social progress. It’s a tender and revealing portrait of characters on the margins.’ — Publishers Weekly

'dd’s Umbrella presents the uncertainty of life and the ever-presence of grief and discrimination to ultimately communicate the importance of showing up for others, to offer them space under an umbrella when it’s raining.' — Asian Review of Books

‘dd’s Umbrella argues that for each moment that remains alive within the history books, there are individual stories that will be remembered and there will be those that remain unheard – but to the people to who those stories belong, they are the way in which the experience the world’—Singapore Unbound 

‘Like Hwang’s previous novels, this book is a tender, spooky portrait of outcast friends and lovers’ — The New Yorker

for I'll Go On

'A profound, lyrical incantation . . . What could be a fairly depressing story [I'll Go On] is raised to a thing of crystalline incandescence because of the sensitivity and humanity with which both author and translator craft this work'—Translating Women

'I’ll Go On tenderly and poetically examines the bonds of sisterhood and family—the one we’re born with and the one we choose—exploring both the damage love can do and its capacity for healing. It’s at once sad and hopeful, quiet and yet full to the brim of an intense and beautiful energy.'—Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure

for One Hundred Shadows

'There is an unforgettable, curious beauty to be found [in One Hundred Shadows]."—Han Kang, 2024 Nobel Laureate for Literature 

“Hwang Jungeun’s One Hundred Shadows is too odd to be this tender, and too sharply materialist to be this mystical, and too lyrical to be this gritty... The novel’s symbols are as compelling as they are opaque, and it sucked me up and spat me out a different person.”—Literary Hub

“I’ve never read anything quite like One Hundred Shadows… experimental fiction at its finest.”—April Magazine

'The South Korean’s first novel — and her first to be translated into English — is mesmerizing and surreal.'— Vulture, ‘15 Must-Read Translated Books From the Past 5 Years’

'Affecting... It's rare for a story to be so dense in social meaning yet so lightly composed.'—The Nation 

'Haunting… subtle but potent… a delicately-structured critique of capitalism.”—3:AM Magazine 

From the Publisher