When culture loses to real estate: What closure of Han Kang's bookstore says about Korea

The entrance to Onul Books, an independent bookstore owned by novelist and Nobel Prize in literature laureate Han Kang, in Seoul's Jongno District, is deserted on July 8, the day of its closure. Yonhap

“Can the Han River ever beat the sea? Come visit Busan!” The celebratory remark by Busan's Kyungnam High School baseball team after winning a championship charmed many with its youthful wit. In reality, however, Nobel laureate Han Kang, who shares a name with the wide river running through Seoul, has been defeated by something else: real estate.

Onul Books, the small independent bookstore run by Han in central Seoul's Seochon neighborhood, closed its doors this month after a change in ownership forced all tenants to vacate the building. It was not a closure the author had wanted.

The bookstore first opened in Seoul's affluent Gangnam District in 2018. Struggling with mounting costs, it relocated in 2023 to a modest 33-square-meter space in Seochon, but could not survive there either. Once again, it fell victim to the power of money.

When Han won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2024, the bookstore briefly shut its doors amid the public frenzy surrounding the award. The lights eventually came back on, that time. This time, they have gone out for good. During its final week, devoted patrons gathered at the store every day to read books together one last time.

Ironically, the Nobel Prize brought unexpected joy not only to readers but also to property owners. Rents in the neighborhood rose as Seochon, already a fashionable district for the past decade, became even more desirable. The scent of profit spread quickly.

The building's new owner is reportedly a corporate entity backed by a real estate investment firm, which purchased it for 3.5 billion won ($2.5 million). Promotional posts on a real estate company's blog touted the property with phrases such as, "It's incredibly difficult to find a commercial building in Seoul priced in the 3 billion won range," "An ideal property for retail brands" and "Seochon is the last frontier for small-scale investors." Nowhere did the name "Han Kang" appear.

The bookstore founded by Korea's first and only Nobel Prize-winning author disappeared just like that. It was a place where Han personally selected and arranged books, handwrote lyrical book recommendations and quietly talked with readers about literature.

"I was deeply moved whenever I felt that people living within several kilometers of the bookstore — about seven bus stops away — had their lives flowing together with the bookstore simply because it existed," Han once said in an interview with the magazine Weekly Kyunghyang.

Along with the bookstore itself, the memories, pride and sense of community it nurtured have also vanished.

The irony is stark: the very author whose presence helped drive up property values in Seochon was ultimately pushed out by those rising values. Such is the ruthless nature of gentrification, where money determines the fate of places and the lives rooted in them.

Many believe the value of a place lies in the immeasurable accumulation of memories, relationships and lived experiences. The real estate market calculates differently. Han's bookstore enriched Seochon's narrow alleys with culture, and the market translated that enrichment into higher property prices.

Under Korea's Commercial Building Lease Protection Act, Han could have exercised her right to renew the lease until 2033. But, as one real estate broker put it, "A determined landlord has many ways to force tenants out."

A passage from the book "Anti-Gentrification" captures the reality: "It is rare for the victims of the disaster called gentrification to prevail. Even when they do, victory merely restores a measure of the honor and self-respect worn away during the struggle and provides only a little strength to continue life afterward."

Perhaps Han made the wiser choice by giving up that "measure" and that "little" before suffering even deeper wounds.

A closure notice hangs on the entrance of novelist Han Kang's bookstore Onul Books in Seoul's Jongno District, July 8. Yonhap

The building was private property. The government cannot realistically preserve every shop with cultural or historical significance. Nor was there any explicit illegality in the eviction process.

Yet many people were shaken by what happened. They saw the brutal force of capital capable of driving even a Nobel laureate's bookstore out of existence and the impotence of legal protections that, despite being well intended, proved unable to stop it.

On reflection, perhaps this is nothing new. A president who himself sold a redevelopment apartment through a controversial mortgage-backed transaction to maximize its price once declared that "real estate windfalls fueled by illegal and questionable practices destroy fairness and common sense in our society."

In a country like that, perhaps expecting too much from an individual landlord is asking the impossible.

Korean novelist Han Kang signs autographs for fans following a "Conversation with the Author" event at the 80th Avignon Theatre Festival in France, July 12. Yonhap

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.