Bloomsbury scoops follow-up to South Korean therapy memoir

Bloomsbury has scooped the follow-up to the South Korean therapy memoir I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee, translated by twice Man Booker International-nominated translator Anton Hur. Publishing director Emma Herdman acquired world English and audio rights from Joy Lee at the BC Agency. The book will be published in summer 2024 with Bloomsbury US and editorial director Callie Garnett. 

Picking up where book one finishes, I Want to Die but I Still Want to Eat Tteokbokki continues as transcripts of Baek Sehee’s conversations with her psychiatrist. It examines the "fallout" of her experiences with depression and hospitalisation, as well as her attempts to understand and heal herself.

The publisher said: "It’s a reminder that recovery doesn’t always appear how we expect; that mental health in real life rarely has a neat solution. Through insights into her discussions with her psychiatrist, the book offers readers a rare insight into the life of someone living with dysthymia."

The first book was a Korean bestseller, and Bloomsbury’s English language edition has now sold over 100,000 copies, with the paperback due to publish in July in three different colourways. Bloomsbury will be running an extensive marketing campaign for the paperback edition, right through to the release of I Want to Die but I Still Want to Eat Tteokbokki, including advertising, partnerships and limited edition point-of-sale material to match the cover and its new colourways.

Baek said: "Even though it is likely I will never get to meet most of my readers, I consider you to be a bright light in my life. I am genuinely grateful. I’ve received many heart-breaking letters since this book was published. Which is why I wish to say, I hope you all find healing soon."

Hur sais: "The response to Baek Sehee’s candid memoir has been so overwhelming worldwide that I have no doubt she has tapped into a global zeitgeist of unnamed yet ever-present suffering that has largely eluded mainstream mental wellness discourse until now. I look forward to continuing with Baek’s readers on her quest for what is quite literally world peace."

Born in 1990, Baek Sehee studied creative writing at university before working for five years at a publishing house. For 10 years, she received psychiatric treatment for dysthymia (persistent mild depression), which became the subject of her essays and her I Want to Die . . . books.