Korean War Fiction

On 25 June, 1950, the invasion of South Korea by the Communist North launched one of the bloodiest conflicts of the last century. The seemingly limitless power of the Chinese-backed North was thrown against the ferocious firepower of the UN-backed South in a war that can be seen today as the stark prelude to Vietnam.

The Korean War was a 20th Century conflict that has never ended. South Korea, a powerhouse economy and dynamic democracy sits uneasily alongside North Korea, the world’s most secretive, belligerent, unpredictable and repressive totalitarian state. Today, tensions simmer and occasionally flare into outright violence on a peninsula dense with arms, munitions and nuclear warheads. Cameron Forbes, acclaimed author of Hellfire, tells the story of the war and Australia’s involvement in it in a riveting narrative.

In the war-torn streets of 1950s Seoul, Min-ji, a young seamstress, stitches together a life for her mother and ailing sister amidst the chaos of the Korean War. When she meets James, an American soldier with plains-wide eyes and a gentle heart, a fragile love blooms, promising a visa and a new life in America. But when tragedy strikes and James is lost to the front lines, Min-ji’s dreams unravel, leaving her a widow with an expiring visa and a desperate fight to remain in her homeland.

Twenty-year-old Joe Sanderson doesn't like to fight so he ends up enlisting in the Korean War in 1950 as a conscientious objector and becomes a medic. Things change for Joe that don't sit well with him. This is a story of family and friendship against the backdrop of the Korean War.

Brought to you by Penguin. Two outsiders are drawn together in a powerful, emotionally gripping story of love and war – the debut novel from the author of Flashlight In 1955, a new student arrives at a small college in the Tennessee mountains. Chuck is shy, speaks English haltingly, and on the...

Spring of 1592. Near the small town of Hamhae, Soodol knows that his life will end as a lowly baekjong, the untouchable caste of Joseon Korea. As he feels sorry for himself with a bottle of cheap alcohol, Japanese horsemen sweep through Hamhae, his birthplace and where his noble father still...