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Poet · Novelist · Essayist · Columnist

The icon of
unhappiness, from hell.

Reviewed in The New York Times. Staff Pick in The Paris Review. Featured by Poetry Foundation and Harvard Review. Longlisted for the PEN America Literary Awards. 30,000+ poetry copies sold in South Korea.

Market Position

No Exit
Literature.

Guilty Literature — A new category.

Trauma → no exit → discomfort. No recovery arc. No redemption. Readers don't feel good. They feel guilty. They can't stop. They buy the next one.

No Exit Guilty Literature
"Happiness will come if you wait? The Little Match Girl froze to death waiting. I don't sell fake happiness." — Lee Soho
Credentials

Reviewed in The New York Times.

Awards
2022
PEN America Literary Awards
Longlisted — PEN Award for Poetry in Translation (Catcalling, translated by Soje)
2018
Kim Suyoung Literary Prize
Korea's most prestigious poetry award
Major Media
2021
The New York Times
Book review — Catcalling (translated by Soje)
2021
The New York Times
International books feature ("Globetrotting")
2023
The Korea Herald
In-depth interview on Home Sweet Home
Editorial Features & Staff Picks
2021
The Paris Review
Staff Pick
2021
Poetry Foundation (Harriet)
Editorial feature on Catcalling (translated by Soje)
2021
Harvard Review
Curated feature inclusion
2021
Hyperallergic
"Our Favorite Poetry Books 2021" — featuring Chicago Review issue (incl. Lee Soho)
2021
The Turnaround Blog
Summer Reads editorial selection
Reviews & Critical Reception
2021
Modern Poetry in Translation
Full-length review: "Considering the Im/Possible" by SK Grout
Publications in English
2021
Chicago Review
Five poems (translated by Soje), Contemporary Korean Poetry issue (Vol. 65, No. 4), curated by Don Mee Choi
2021
Black Warrior Review
Poem in translation (translated by Soje)
2021
ANMLY
Poem in translation (translated by Soje)
Interviews
2022
Modern Poetry in Translation
In-depth interview, Part I (translated by Soje)
2024
Korea.net
Interview by Eman Elashker
Festivals & Readings
2025
Stockholm International Poetry Festival
Invited poet, featured participant
2020
Sant Jordi NYC
Featured poet, international online reading (translated by Soje)
Television, Radio & Press
2022
MBC I Live Alone
Essay collection spotted in celebrity reading scene on Korea's highest-rated observational reality show
2025
SBS Love FM 103.5
Author interview
2023
Gugak Broadcasting
Home Sweet Home feature
DAZED Korea
Photo editorial
2025–
Hankook Ilbo
Monthly columnist — literature, culture, contemporary life
Sales & Publishing
Catcalling
16 printings, 20,000+ copies. 7 years as steady bestseller. Referenced and critiqued across Korean universities.
Letters, Obscene and Incomplete
8 printings, 5,000+ copies. Poetry-art collaboration (PIN Series).
Home Sweet Home
5,000+ copies. Illustrations by Yeon Yeoin (poster artist for Park Chan-wook's No Other Choice). First interior illustrations in Moonji's 40-year history. Aladin Editor's Pick.
Novella — Wisdom House
5 printings, steady seller. Top 10 in Aladin year-end ranking.
Short Story Collection — Jaeum & Moeum
Reprinted within 2 months.
Platform Partnerships & Events
2022
Millie's Library
First poetry serialization on Korea's largest reading platform (4M+ subscribers)
2023
Seoul International Book Fair
Invited speaker
2022
D Museum CLASS 7PM
Poetry workshop at contemporary art museum
Cultural Impact
Academic Reception
Catcalling referenced and critiqued across Korean universities
Literary Criticism
Subject of critic debut essays (Discourse on Lee Soho)
Stockholm Korean Cultural Center
Works held in permanent collection

Nine books published. Seven more contracted.

Contact Lee Soho →
Poetry

A Small Museum of Trauma. 10 rooms.

Each collection is a different room. A different experiment inside the frame. All poetry. All on the wall. The frame never breaks — it explodes from within.

Recommended for Translation — 6 Collections
Room 1 — Base Camp
Catcalling (2018)
Violence, gender, diaspora.
The experiment: the language of violence inside poetry. English edition published by Open Letter Books (2021, translated by Soje). NYT review, PEN America longlist. 16 printings, 20,000+ copies in Korea.
English edition published · translated by Soje
Room 2 — Portable Museum
Letters, Obscene and Incomplete (2021)
All-typography. A museum you carry.
The experiment: typography inside poetry. Where conceptual art meets writing. 32 poems. 8 printings, 5,000+ copies.
Korean · 8 printings
Room 3 — Hell is Home
Home Sweet Home (2023)
Home as hell. Family violence, diaspora, immigration.
The experiment: fable-concept poetry. Illustrations by Yeon Yeoin (poster artist for Park Chan-wook's No Other Choice). First interior illustrations in Moonji's 40-year history. 5,000+ copies. Aladin Editor's Pick.
Korean · 5,000+ copies
Room 4 — Board Game
If You Call My Name, I Die (Fall 2026)
Monopoly concept. No first person. Global stories.
The experiment: a board game inside poetry. The reader rolls the dice and becomes a stranger — a perpetrator or a victim. No recovery. You pass by. You stand by. You are only briefly an '-er.'
Moonji · Fall 2026
Room 5 — Asylum
Tsundere Real Alpaca (Contracted)
Psychiatric hospital. Inspired by Nellie Bly.
The experiment: psychiatric diagnosis inside poetry. A patient named 'Lee Soho' experiences 50+ conditions in first person and escapes. DSM-5 as poetic structure.
Contracted
Room 6 — War
Don't Pretend It's Sunny (Contracted)
SF poetry. Future Korea and the Crimson Empire.
The experiment: science fiction inside poetry. War, loss of humanity, trauma. The last poem connects to the first.
Contracted
Room 7 — Physics
Even Sadness Could Be Science (Manuscript Complete)
Physics-based lyric poetry. Rogue planet sequence.
The experiment: physics inside poetry. Manuscript complete. Not yet contracted in Korea — available for English-language markets first.
Available for English first
Fiction

The Broken Trilogy.

Three novels. Broken by money, broken by language, broken by body. No exit in any of them.

Broken Money
As Diligent As Interest (Full-Length Novel)
Autofiction. Three generations of debt.
From an Alaskan salmon factory to a Christmas night on a fifth-floor railing. She treated her shopping addiction and paid back $14,000, but the system neutralized her recovery. The interest was as diligent as she was. Kyoyuseoga, summer 2026.
Full manuscript · English synopsis + sample ready
Broken Language
No Feed of My World (Full-Length Novel)
Autofiction. Seven countries, seven words, one broken body.
A woman from a garnish-language country circles the globe with broken words. Different English in every country, different discrimination in every country.
Short pitch ready
Broken Body
Piece of Broken Body (Full-Length Novel)
An autopsy of a living woman. 15 body parts, 15 chapters.
From head to heart, each organ broken by a different system. Born as a pet-shop crossbreed, ending in a revolving door.
Short pitch ready
Standalone Fiction
Novella
My Crazy Neighbor (2023)
Near-future literary SF. Post-museum dystopia.
A replica artist in a world without originals. Two women split apart by the violence of comparison. 5 printings, steady seller.
Published · Wisdom House
Linked Stories
A Micro Forest (2025)
SF. A second moon. 48 hours to choose: eternal light or eternal dark.
The day the second moon appeared, Earth's axis broke. Two girls must choose between a world of only night and a world of only day. Reprinted within 2 months.
Published · Jaeum & Moeum
Essay

Unique but easy.

2021 · Changbi
As You Please, As I Please
2024 · Minumsa
Thoughts I Write, Excuses I Buy
2022 · Whalebooks
Thirty-Five, Feeling Old
2021 · Dal Publishers
To Those Who Don't Love Me
Endorsements

Publisher-commissioned texts.

Endorsements for Korean editions of international works.

Nuclear Family Joseph Han 2023
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed Mariana Enriquez 2021
Milk Teeth Jessica Andrews 2024
Oddbody Rose Keating Forthcoming
A Cruelty Special to Our Species Emily Jungmin Yoon Forthcoming

Foreign-language rights available
across all titles.

Full manuscripts, synopses, and sample chapters on request.

Contact Lee Soho
Contact

Lee Soho.

Based in
Seoul, South Korea
Available
English-language rights available across all titles except Catcalling (Open Letter Books). All other foreign-language rights available worldwide. Full manuscripts, synopses, and sample chapters on request.
Translation
Currently blueprinting English samples in collaboration with Sijin Lee (Melbourne).