Congratulations to Juhea Kim, whose gorgeous novel BEASTS OF A LITTLE LAND launches today! You won’t want to miss this book. Juhea Kim’s work belongs with that of Tea Obrecht on the very top shelf of historical (or any) fiction. (You can buy it at your favorite bookstore, or the author’s website.)

“An epic novel brings complex 20th-century Korean history to life…. Gorgeous prose and unforgettable characters combine to make a literary masterpiece.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

My feature interview with Juhea Kim is posted at Historical Novel Society here

Juhea shared with me some photos and thoughts on her working space. My personal impressions: Juhea’s home is orderly, thoughtful, and rather spare. Her choices reflect not so much a concern with decor—though the spaces are very pleasing—as her deep commitment to environmental conservation. The rooms leave plenty of freedom, as befits her love of travel—not clinging, yet welcoming to the traveler coming home.

Desk

“I must confess I don’t do a whole lot of work at my desk—but it is still absolutely necessary. It’s where I work on manuscript passes and organize my schedule on an actual physical calendar. These days I’m considerably less busy and exhausted, but I wrote BEASTS OF A LITTLE LAND while working full-time as an editor in New York. I survived by making checklists and writing down “500 words” or however much I added each day.

“The framed art above the desk (at right) is an original watercolor by a Brooklyn artist named Claire Wilson. Below it hangs a Chagall painting of the Baie des Anges in Nice (it’s the azure one—you can see it better on the window sill [first photo] before I put it up). I bought it at a special exhibit of his works at Caumont Centre d’Art in Aix-en-Provence—one of the most sublime art experiences I’ve ever had, in any medium. I also spent a month right next to the Baie des Anges.

“The frame that hangs to the left of the desk is a photo I took on the train traveling through the western fjords in Norway. It was May, and the fields were covered in snow and wrapped in ribbons of ice-blue frozen rivers.

“Travel is a necessary element in my writing process—I write a lot of short fiction while journeying and even if something doesn’t directly inspire a new story, it definitely shakes something loose in my mind and soul. My desk is a reminder of these dream places from my past.”

Coffee table + sofa

This is where I actually do most of my work. I try to always have fresh flowers around the house. When I was little, my only goal was to become successful enough that I could buy flowers every week. I resolutely didn’t care about any other marker of wealth or success. What’s interesting about life is that you do end up getting the things that are most important to you. My writerly motivation springs not from a mug of coffee but from a vase of flowers. 

My cat Zeus likes to keep me company while I write on the sofa, which is from a sustainable Finnish brand called Luonto. I’m very keen on sustainably sourced furniture; furniture is the #2 use of timber (after construction) and a major driver of deforestation, and there is a huge problem of illegal logging from the Russian Far East to Africa for “fast furniture” that fill our stores. Most of my house was furnished with second-hand furniture (even the bed and the mattress) and this new sofa was made with ethically sourced wood. 

Bookcase

To my point about secondhand furniture, I bought this bookcase for $10 at a local Goodwill store and my dad painted it red for me. I haven’t read all the books here, and I hope I get to, some day. But there are books here that I’ve read multiple times, like Anna Karenina. Another noteworthy item here is the ten-volume anthology of world classic short stories edited by Yi Mun-yol—another great way to shake something loose is reading in another language, in this case Korean. I gave away almost all my books when I moved out of New York in 2018, so my “library” has been slowly rebuilding since. 

Check out award-winning translator Charlotte Mandell’s writing space here