© Jack Lee
An international bestseller, Juhea Kim's debut novel Beasts of a Little Land was a finalist for the 2022 Dayton Literary Peace Prize. It won the 2024 Yasnaya Polyana Award, the largest annual literary prize in Russia awarded by the Leo Tolstoy Museum-Estate. She donated the entire prize money to the conservation of Siberian tigers and Amur leopards. Beasts of a Little Land was chosen as a BBC World Book Club pick and has been published in 14 countries to date. Beasts of a Little Land also has been optioned for a TV series, for which Juhea is serving as an executive producer.
Her second novel City of Night Birds was a Reese’s Book Club pick as well as a Ballerina Book Club pick by American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Isabella Boylston. It is being published in 7 countries to date. A Love Story from the End of the World (Nov 2025; US and UK) is her third book and first story collection. Its opening story "Biodome" has been optioned for film adaptation; the project was awarded support from the Seoul Film Commission.
Her fiction, nonfiction, and journalism have been published in Granta, Slice, Zyzzyva, Catapult, Times Literary Supplement, Joyland, Shenandoah, Guernica, Sierra Magazine, The Massachusetts Review, Catamaran, The Independent, and Portland Monthly, among others. Her translation of Yi Sang Award-winning author Choi In-Ho was published in Granta.
From 2013 to 2023, Juhea was the founder and editor of Peaceful Dumpling, an online magazine covering sustainable lifestyle and ecological literature. She has received fellowships from Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference and Regional Arts & Culture Council. She has given lectures at Seoul National University, UC Berkeley, Cambridge University, Yonsei University, the American University of Paris, the University of São Paulo, Arizona State University, UNESCO, and literary festivals around the globe.
From 2021 to the end of 2023, she donated a portion of the worldwide proceeds of Beasts of a Little Land to the Phoenix Fund, a Siberian tiger and Amur leopard conservation nonprofit based in Vladivostok, Russia. Since 2024, she has been donating associated royalties and prize money to tiger and leopard conservation through the Korean Tiger Leopard Conservation Fund 한국범보전기금, due to changes in political circumstances. She donates a portion of the worldwide proceeds of City of Night Birds to Caritas Somalia, a development and emergency aid NGO. A portion of the proceeds of A Love Story from the End of the World is donated to several grassroots, volunteer-led nonprofits making a difference in their own communities.
Juhea was born in Incheon, Korea, and moved to Portland, Oregon, at age nine. She graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Art and Archaeology and a certificate in French. Juhea has been an ethical vegan since the age of 19. She advocates for plant-based eating, composting, low-waste and low-plastic footprint, #adoptdontshop, and other compassionate and eco-friendly ways of living. She lives with two adorable rescue cats: Kili (Achilles) and Ody (Odysseus). She is based in London and Portland, Oregon.
© Kwon Hyeok-jae 권혁재 for JoongAng Daily. Please do not use without permission.
© Kwon Hyeok-jae 권혁재 for JoongAng Daily. Please do not use without permission.