Jungeun Yun, author of "Marigold Mind Laundry" / Courtesy of Studio15

If you've spent time on Seoul's subway recently, or indeed public transport in Korea in general, you may have noticed that paper books are back in fashion. Many of these books have a recognizable style of cover — warm, inviting colors and a Jimmy Corrigan-like traditional hanok or otherwise cosy-looking freestanding building on the cover. This is a result of the Korean healing fiction trend, which is slowly taking the nation by storm.

Apart from those instantly recognizable covers, Korean healing fiction has several distinct traits. The novels are short and written in a highly readable style, which makes them ideal for commuters. Korean healing novels tell of people, burned out by the stresses of hypercompetitive life in the big city, who find new energy and personal growth through joining a community or learning a skill — running a bookshop, learning to cook or some other endeavor that allows for creative expression.

A likely antecedent to this genre is James R Doty's "Into The Magic Shop," which shot up the bestseller list in Korea in 2018 as a result of BTS' reference to it in their song "The Magic Shop." In this work of nonfiction, Doty describes visiting a magic shop as a boy, but finds a different kind of magic when the proprietor teaches him meditation and mindfulness.

Yeon Somin, author of "The Healing Season of Pottery" / Courtesy of Han Se-hee

"Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop" by Hwang Bo-reum and Kim Ho-yeon's "Uncanny Convenience Store" were two of the earliest examples of Korean healing fiction, with the latter selling over 1 million copies in 2022. Since then, the genre has burgeoned, and become hugely popular with what Koreans call the MZ Generation, an amalgamation of Millennials and Generation Z, who are thought to be digitally literate, socially conscious and more individualistic than past generations. They are also facing greater financial and social pressure, especially the drive to excel and succeed.

If that description sounds like you, then you're in luck: now English-language readers are able to sample this uniquely Korean literary genre through new translations of Yeon Somin's "The Healing Season of Pottery" and Jungeun Yun's "The Marigold Mind Laundry."

The cover of "The Healing Season of Pottery" by Yeon Somin / Courtesy of Penguin UK

"The Healing Season of Pottery" introduces readers to Jungmin, a woman who has recently given up the high-pressure life of broadcast writing in the cutthroat TV industry for a simpler life. One day she wanders into a building thinking it is a coffee shop, but finds a pottery class taking place inside. When she signs up for lessons, her life slowly begins to change for the better. Jungmin has her own past traumas, more dramatic than the stresses of the TV industry which have affected her present-day thinking and damaged her longstanding friendships. Gradually the reader learns about these, but also sees Jungmin slowly grow in confidence, and in appreciation of the simpler things in life. There's a romantic component too, as Jungmin feels an obvious attraction to Gisik, another member of the class. This gentle relationship, charting a feeling of attraction leading to companionship, recalls Mabel Cheung's 1987 film "An Autumn's Tale."

The four seasons give this novel its structure, and it's brimming with cultural detail. Yeon, like many Korean authors, loves to dwell on culinary details, describing the smells, textures and tastes of Korean food. Clare Richards' translation preserves details such as honorifics, balancing this so that readers less familiar with Korean culture will feel invited in rather than overwhelmed.

The cover of "Marigold Mind Laundry" by Jungeun Yun

"The Marigold Mind Laundry," although undeniably also healing fiction, is markedly different from Jungmin's down-to-earth failures and successes. Jungeun Yun conjures up a magic realist world where Jieun, a young woman with magic powers, is able to ‘wash' people's painful memories in what she calls her mind laundry, manifesting the memories into stains on T-shirts and finally into beautiful patterns of flowers.

Jieun meets five people: a filmmaker who, like Jungmin, is frustrated with the pressures of the industry but also suffering from creative block, and his friend, a woman who is reeling from a painful breakup and infidelity. Jieun's next visitor is a suicidal social media influencer, and then a bullied photographer, followed by a woman who discovered her boyfriend already has a wife and child. These five characters provide a very specific, formalist structure to the novel, just as "The Healing Season of Pottery" is structured according to the four seasons.

At times, the advice given by Jieun to her visitors can feel a little superficial. However, the descriptions of their traumatic backstories are convincing and moving — there's something believable about the traumas these characters have endured. Characters such as Eunbyul, the influencer whose career has ballooned out of control so that she can support her rapacious and materialistic family, will especially resonate with the book's original audience. The magical, fairy tale element is both charming and gives an out of time quality to the contemporary tales of the laundry's visitors. Jieun herself is the book's most intriguing character, since she makes it her life's work to help others and yet has unresolved issues of her own.

Despite the focus on slowing down the hectic pace of modern life, both authors reveal themselves to be social media savvy. "Marigold Mind Laundry" covers the superficial, competitive side of social media, while in contrast "The Healing Season of Pottery" shows it comfortably coexisting alongside the traditional occupation of pottery: Jungmin uses social media to promote pottery, penning thoughtful mini-essays for the workshop's Instagram account, and rediscovers her love of writing as a result.

Both novels are intriguing examples of this fresh genre, each recognizably healing fiction but each with unique features of its own. In fact, each describes a different kind of healing. "The Healing Season of Pottery" shows the slow recovery from occupational burnout by discovering a new sense of community and purpose, while "Marigold Mind Laundry" shows more personal pain being healed through a tear-stained, cathartic, miraculous process.

Anyone interested in — or directly experiencing — the pressures facing young Koreans is particularly recommended to read these novels for the welter of culturally specific details they provide, while anyone looking for something readable and uplifting will also find much to enjoy in them.

The English translation of "The Healing Season of Pottery" was released on Sept. 19, and "Marigold Mind Laundry" came out on Oct. 1. Both are available in Korea from dbbooks.co.kr.

John A. Riley is a writer and former university lecturer who spent over 10 years living and working in Korea. He has written for The Asian Review of Books, Popmatters, Screen and numerous other publications.