Juhea Kim On Cli-Fi, Short Stories & The Books That Shaped Her

A Love Story from the End of the World may take its title from the final of 10 short stories bundled inside, but it also encapsulates our very moment of ecological crisis. Its UK publication (today, 20 November) comes on the heels of Ian McEwan’s own climate love story of sorts, What We Can Know, which hit the shelves in September – the author’s second ever cli-fi in a career spanning 18 novels and half a century. Take Nobel prize winning writer Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel Klara and the Sun, add in the rise of climate writers like Richard Powers and Eleanor Catton, and it’s clear that our ecologic crisis is seeping into fiction across the board, from newcomers to writers at the peak of their craft.

But the genesis of Juhea Kim’s first short story collection isn’t newfangled: it ‘comes from a lifetime of loving nature,’ the author tells me – as well as ‘searching for a means to effect change through art’. Spanning the globe, Africa to the South Pacific to the south of France, A Love Story from the End of the World explores ‘what it means to be the human inhabitants of our one miraculous planet,’ Juhea summarises. And today, that miraculousness cannot be separated from the ‘various dimensions of our ecological collapse. Pollution, biodiversity loss, war (which is also an eco crime), the climate crisis… These are some of the issues I’ve been drawn to over the past 20 years as an environmental and animal advocate,’ Juhea says.

As well as fiction – to date both her novels Beasts of a Little Land (2021) and City of Night Birds (2024) have become global bestsellers – Juhea is an environmental activist (with most of her earnings funnelled to conservation charities) and journalist, which ‘sometimes surprises readers who know me for my novels,’ she says. ‘To me though, my artistry and advocacy, fiction and nonfiction have all been one work to speak to our conscience.’

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by The Borough Press (@boroughpress)

Is the shift from novel to short story another symptom of our moment? ‘I think our reduced attention span has had an immense impact on publishing,’ Juhea muses. ‘Globally, people are seeking shorter, lighter, and more digestible reads, and you can see this trend in novels as well. 

‘But of course, short stories shouldn’t feel like a snack or popcorn that you can consume mindlessly without filling up,’ Juhea warns. ‘I hope each of my stories is like a well-made Old Fashioned: to be savoured one at a time, with lingering intoxication.’

And writing short stories comes with just as high stakes for the author. ‘Writing a novel is like running a marathon. Only, after you enter the stadium and cross the finish line, someone says to you, “Good job. Now go do it again.” You repeat this several times until the moment of publication,’ Juhea says. ‘Writing a short story, on the other hand, is like driving in a Formula One race. There is a lot more room for error; you have to be precise and controlled, or you will crash and burn at the smallest turn. It’s dangerous and thrilling. Both novel and short stories take a lot out of you and nearly kill you, but in different ways.’

And if we look back through the bibliography of McEwan, now 77 to Juhea’s 38 years, you’ll find his own short story collections right at the genesis of his career: First Love, Last Rites (1975) and In Between the Sheets (1978). Tipped to be Korea’s next laureate after Han Kang bagged the uber-prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature in 2024, Juhea has caught a hold of the baton, and her third novel is well on its way. ‘My books are just about who I am as a person,’ Juhea tells me, with Beasts of a Little Land about her heritage, City of Night Birds about her love of art, and A Love Story from the End of the World about her ‘first, and probably greatest, passion, which is nature’.

‘Inspiration comes from keeping your gaze and your heart open to the world. It can be music, paintings, ballet, or it can be something quite small like birds or insects in your garden,’ Juhea adds. ‘Anything can trigger a sense of realisation; and then you become consumed by the process of giving form to that wisdom.’

Having made 25,000 words of headway in her third novel, titled The Divine Comedy, Juhea teases it ‘deals with the fourth theme of [her] life, which is faith’. ‘It explores the meaning of life and death, but in a very funny way because it’s highly autobiographical and I did get into a lot of misadventures in my 20s,’ Juhea says.

In this edition of Shelf Life – where authors tell C&TH about the books that shaped them – Juhea details her lasting love of mythology, falling asleep to Jane Austen, and the nineteenth century novel she will never stop recommending.

Shelf Life: Juhea Kim

This book made me a reader…

I was passionately in love with reading as a child, and my favorites were Greek and Korean mythology.

Buy Now

Buy Now

Buy Now

Buy Now

LISTEN

Buy Now

Buy Now

Buy Now

Buy Now