In ‘Hunger,' love so deep it crosses death — and consumes what's left behind

Korea Herald

2 days ago

In buzzworthy cult classic, Choi Jin-young turns grief into hunger, questions the price we put on human life
At its core, 'Hunger' is a love story — visceral, tender and almost unbearably devoted — that dares to push the boundaries of what it means to love someone beyond death.
The macabre romance follows Gu and Dam, two lovers who grew up in the same neighborhood and remained obsessive and inseparable into adulthood, until Gu is murdered in the street by loan sharks.
In a moment when time seems to stop, Dam cradles his body, carries it home and cleanses him in a ritualistic act. Then, slowly, she consumes him — literally entombing his body within her own, where her partner will live again. With each bite, she revisits bittersweet memories of their life together.
Written by Choi Jin-young, one of Korea's leading literary voices, 'Hunger,' released in 2015, became a word-of-mouth sensation. The cult classic was recently published in the UK with a translation by Soje, and is soon to be released in North America, Italy, the Netherlands, China, Indonesia and across Spanish-speaking countries.
Despite its gruesome premise, the novella unfolds with a sadness and an almost poetic calm, as though grief itself demands the act. The book is less about cannibalism than about why someone might feel compelled to cross that line. It's a meditation on love, the gutting pain of sudden loss and grief, and a society that treats human lives as disposable.
Choi says the idea came from an unsettlingly tender place.
'While writing this story, I often looked back on the times I was with my lover. When I was in love, I sometimes imagined nibbling at and tearing off my lover's flesh, like cotton candy. That thought never felt grotesque,' said Choi, 43, in an interview with The Korea Herald last month.
'In Korea, people say they want to 'bite' someone they love dearly. In this story, eating wasn't monstrous — it was simply another way to express love.'
One shadow that hangs over the two throughout is 'a grave of debt,' which 'became a parasite clinging to Gu's life, eating away at his humanity and sucking him dry.'
Thus, the act of cannibalism becomes a device to show that society's treatment of individuals can be even more barbaric. Even in death, collectors hound Gu for repayment — a commentary on rampant capitalism and class inequality, where some lives are valued while others are treated not as human beings, but merely as bodies.
'I imagined eating as a way of mourning. but I also wanted to reflect my discomfort with how easily people put a price on human life,' Choi said. "When someone dies, compensation is the first thing discussed, translating a person's life into capital. I wanted to ask: If eating someone is barbaric, isn't buying and selling life also barbaric?'
Love, in all its complexity
Not every love story is beautiful in the conventional sense. Sometimes love is gutting and haunting, yet still undeniably beautiful. 'Hunger' occupies a strange dichotomy — part heart-aching love story, part disturbing violence — standing as an ode to doomed love.
Before writing this book, Choi wrestled with a fundamental question: 'Do we need love at all?'
'Love can bring happiness, but it also breeds fights, misunderstandings, jealousy, obsession, fear of separation, and ultimately, inevitable parting. I kept asking myself why we must love if it leads to such pain."
She felt that portraying an idyllic love story with a message of 'Let's love' would lack conviction. Instead, she sought to show a love that is painful, unfortunate and haunting, and to ask: 'Would you still choose to love?'
'For that reason, I created the characters Dam and Gu. I wrote the novel deeply empathizing with Dam, who loves Gu.'
Near the end of the novel, she wrote, 'I'm not saying let's be happy. I'm saying let's be together. I don't mind being unhappy with you.'
At that moment, Choi realized, 'I wrote this novel to find that sentence.'
'Starting from the question, 'Must we love?' the novel ends with the answer: 'Love that stays together despite unhappiness.' Since then, I have also tried to be someone who stays through hard times. Writing a novel is also a process that changes the writer."
Choi sees love as the emotional core of her work. She wants to explore not only its warm and beautiful aspects but also its dark and fearful sides.
'I like to write about things I want to understand rather than what I already know. Love is something we can never fully grasp, which is why I keep writing about it.'
But love is also something she wants to do well in this lifetime.
'To love well requires many skills and effort. Wisdom, patience, imagination, a spirit of sacrifice, tolerance, empathy, understanding, adaptability and wise judgment all need to be cultivated. By striving to love well, I believe both myself and my life will grow broader and deeper,' said Choi.
'And the love I portray in my stories is the same. I want to capture the wide, diverse and ever-changing spectrum of love. I want to keep exploring what love truly means.'
How 'Hunger' defied time, took back bestseller lists
When Koreans talk about 'Hunger,' the conversation inevitably leads to discussing a phenomenon that publishers and bookstores cannot explain.
When the novella was published in 2015, it did not do well. But around 2020, it quietly gained traction among readers in their 20s and, a year later, its popularity among young adults exploded, driving a 234.6 percent increase in sales that year alone. Teen purchases skyrocketed by 8,500 percent, fueling the book's remarkable resurgence, according to Yes24, a major online book retailer.
There was no special promotion or triggering event — the book simply caught on through word of mouth. Soon after, readers in their 30s and 40s joined in, cementing the book as a steady seller.
In 2023, it ranked 9th on Kyobo Book Center's overall bestseller list and 19th in 2024. Roughly 400,000 copies have been sold as of August 2025, according to the Korean publisher EunHaengNaMu Publishing.
Choi reflected on why the novel resonates so deeply with young readers.
'This is a very personal opinion, but I thought back to the fairy tales we read as children. Fairy tales and myths contain far stranger and more grotesque elements than eating a corpse. For instance, tigers devour mothers and impersonate them, siblings become the sun and the moon, witches are burned alive, people survive inside whales, or are born with magical hair. Mythological heroes kill fathers and devour sons,' explained Choi.
'In childhood, impossibility doesn't exist in storytelling. But as we grow and become socialized, we begin to question and set boundaries — 'this doesn't make sense.' Some adults cannot accept the fictional elements in a novel like this, while teenagers seem more willing to accept them.'
On a similar note, Choi believes younger generations digest the intense, tragic and pure love between Gu and Dam far more naturally.
'Adults' definitions of love often narrow with age, excluding different kinds of love. When we consider the classics beloved over generations, their tragic love stories often end in heartbreak. Literature's role, I think, is to convey tragedy not as mere sorrow but as a deeper look into life's hidden realities. People cherish and deeply empathize with such stories.'