From Park Chan-wook to Bora Chung, cultural icons to grace 2025 Seoul Int'l Book Fair

Visitors browse books at the 2024 Seoul International Book Fair at COEX in southern Seoul, June 26, 2024. Newsis

From Cannes-winning director Park Chan-wook to International Booker Prize-shortlisted author Bora Chung, cultural and literary luminaries will transform this year’s Seoul International Book Fair into one of the season’s most anticipated festivals.

Running from June 18 to 22 at COEX in southern Seoul, the fair embraces the theme “The Last Resort” — a reflection on the things we cling to with hope when everything else feels uncertain.

Organized by the Korean Publishers Association, this year’s edition brings together more than 530 publishers and agencies from 17 countries, with Taiwan the official guest of honor. At the “Taiwan Sensibility” pavilion, the island’s distinct literature — tackling themes of migration, gender, LGBTQ+, social class and national language — will take center stage.

A poster for the 2025 Seoul International Book Fair, running under the theme of "The Last Resort" / Courtesy of Korean Publishers Association

But perhaps the real highlight of the five-day event lies in its stellar lineup of guest speakers, whose voices will breathe life into its lectures and conversations.

Among them stands filmmaker Park, the visionary auteur who helped catapult Korean cinema onto the world stage with his visually arresting and psychologically incisive masterpieces like “Oldboy” (2003), “Lady Vengeance” (2005) and “Decision to Leave” (2022).

Beyond his cinematic triumphs, the director harbors an abiding love for literature — a passion that pulses through his filmography. A number of his works are imaginative adaptations of novels for both the big and small screens, including “The Handmaiden” (2016), “The Little Drummer Girl” (2018) and “The Sympathizer” (2024).

On June 20, Park will take the stage to share the literary elements that stir his imagination, talk about the delicate alchemy of adapting page to picture and the books that have shaped his aesthetic vision.

In another talk, five young women writers working in East Asian sci-fi — Kim Cho-yeop, Cheon Seon-ran, Kim Chung-gyul, Zhou Wen and Cheng Jingbo — will come together to explore the body as our origin, vessel and prison.

Bora Chung, acclaimed for her genre-blurring short story collections “Cursed Bunny” and “Your Utopia,” is scheduled to unveil her latest mystery thriller, “The Children’s House.” Meanwhile, Juhea Kim, who debuted with the Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award-winning “Beasts of a Little Land,” will present her new coming-of-age novel, “City of Night Birds.”

Joining this literary constellation are Baek Hee-na, recipient of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Prize; Lee Suzy, winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Award; as well as beloved authors Sohn Won-pyung and Kim Ae-ran.

The program also welcomes figures from the wider cultural sphere whose creative work intersects with literature: actor and publisher Park Jeong-min, visual artist Nikki S. Lee and Spanish photographer Yosigo.

Discounted tickets are available through June 17, the eve of the fair’s opening. Visit sibf.or.kr/en for full program details.