
Orange and the Bread Knife: The Chilling Korean Bestseller – where one woman decides she has had ENOUGH
Author(s): Cheong Ye (Author), Slin Jung (Translator)
- Publisher: Wildfire
- Publication Date: 11 Jun. 2026
- Language: English
- Print length: 208 pages
- ISBN-10: 1035434989
- ISBN-13: 9781035434985
Book Description
The thrilling high-concept Korean bestseller about conforming to society’s standards.
HAPPINESS IS ALWAYS A CHOICE
Youngah is a warm-hearted schoolteacher – always smiling, always yielding. She bends her life to everyone else’s rules. But deep inside, this endless restraint is killing her. An unending sense of despair festers.
Desperate for relief, she turns to a cutting-edge, four-week emotion regulation programme, which promises to sculpt her into a better version of herself.
The procedure works a little too well.
Unburdened at last, Youngah embraces her raw, unfiltered self, dismantling the weight of the exhausting expectations and ideals imposed upon her.
WHO WOULD EVER CRAWL BACK WHEN FREEDOM FEELS THIS GOOD?
** Translated from the Korean by Slin Jung **
Here’s what readers have to say . . .
‘The ending was a clever twist that left me contemplating the true cost of liberation’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘A fantastic, honest and raw novel‘ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘I loved this, I read it in one afternoon! I thought the translation was excellent & very smooth‘ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘A fascinating character study – the perfect antidote to the wave of ‘healing’ fiction‘ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘Unhinged in the best possible way‘ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘The pacing was just right, the characters were well rounded and the scenarios highly realistic’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Editorial Reviews
Review
Cheong Ye’s savage, feverish hacking at the uncomfortably messy line between selflessness and selfishness, in Slin Jung’s knife-sharp translation. ― SUNG RYU, translator of TEDDY BEARS NEVER DIE
I inhaled this strange, brave, beautifully translated book in just two days, relishing the sadistic pleasure the protagonist feels from everything suddenly turning inside-out after a lifetime spent trying to meet the relentless demands of an impossible world. Truly captivating. — AYESHA MANAZIR SIDDIQI, author of The Centre
Book Description
The thrilling high-concept Korean bestseller about conforming to society’s standards, where one woman decides she has HAD ENOUGH – with the creepy dystopian undercurrent of a Black Mirror episode, perfect for fans of EARTHLINGS by Sayaka Murata and DIARY OF A VOID by Emi Yagi.
About the Author
Cheong Ye is a writer who secretly rinses kimchi in water before eating it. She is the winner of the Excellence Prize in the 9th Kyobo Bookstore Story Contest (short fiction), Grand Prize in the 4th Com2uS Global Content Literature Awards, and Grand Prize in both the 1st and 2nd K-Story Contests. She also received the Grand Prize for novel-length work at the 6th Korean Science Fiction Literature Awards.
She has signed multiple adaptation contracts for screen productions and selected as one of ’12 Young Writers Shaping the Future of Korean Literature 2024′ by Yes24, and one of ’20 Young Writers Shaping the Future of Korean Literature 2025′.
Slin Jung is a freelance translator and interpreter who received an MA in conference interpreting at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. Her published translations include The Rainfall Market (2024), Orange and the Bread Knife (2026), and the co-translated Beyond the Story: 10-Year Record of BTS (2023).
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