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Published: 11th March 2025
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Published: 19th March 2025
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Published: 2nd July 2025
Counterattacks At Thirty: A Novel
By (Author) Won-pyung Sohn
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
HarperCollins
19th March 2025
United States
General
Fiction
Fiction: general and literary
Fiction in translation
Paperback
240
From the bestselling author of ALMOND, The Devil Wears Prada meets The Office in this witty, humane, and ultimately transformative story of a group of young workers who rebel against the status quo.
Jihye is an ordinary woman who has never been extraordinary. In her administrative job at the Academy, she silently tolerates office politics and the absurdities of Korean bureaucracy. Forever only one misplaced email away from career catastrophe, she effectively becomes a master of the silent eye-roll and the tactical coffee run. But all her efforts to endure her superiors and the semi-hostile work environment they create are upended when a new intern, Gyuok Lee, arrives.
Like a pacifist version of V in V for Vendetta, Gyuok recruits a trio of office allies to carry out plans for minor revenge. Together, these four rebels commit tiny protests against those in more powerful positions through spraying graffiti, throwing eggs, and writing anonymous exposs. But as their attacks increase, the initial joy they felt at the release becomes something more and Jihye and the others will discover the beauty of friendship and the extraordinary power of unity against adversity.
Sohn Won-pyung (b.1979) earned BA in social studies and philosophy at Sogang University and film directing at Korean Academy of Film Arts. She won the Film Review Award of the 6th Cine21 in 2001. Her movie script "I Believe In the Moment" won the Science Fantasy Writers' Award in 2006. She also wrote and directed a number of short films including Oooh You Make Me Sick (2005), and A Two-way Monologue (2007). She made her literary debut in 2017 when her first full-length novel Almond won the Changbi Prize for Young Adult Fiction, immediately garnering rave reactions from the readers. A new generation of a storyteller, she wrote her next full-length novel, Born in 1988 which won the Jeju 4.3 Peace Literary Award. She is active in both movie and literary scenes as a film director, screenwriter, and novelist.