Available Formats
Paperback
Published: 27th August 2024
Paperback
Published: 30th September 2025
Hardback
Published: 26th November 2024
Yeonnam-Dong's Smiley Laundromat: The Heartwarming Korean Bestseller
By (Author) Kim Jiyun
Translated by Shanna Tan
Quercus Publishing
MacLehose Press
27th August 2024
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Family life fiction
895.735
Paperback
320
Width 136mm, Height 215mm, Spine 26mm
330g
Situated in a rapidly gentrifying district of Seoul, Yeonnam-Dong's Smiley Laundromat is a place where the extraordinary stories of ordinary residents unfold. Furnished with a coffee machine, a full bookshelf, and warm lighting, it is a haven from the world for many locals.
And when a notebook is left behind there, it becomes a place that brings people together. One by one, customers start jotting down candid diary entries, opening their hearts and inviting acts of kindness from neighbours who were once just faces in the crowd.But there is darker story behind the notebook, and before long the laundromat's regulars are teaming up to solve the mystery and put the world to rights.Instantly capturing the hearts of Korean readers, this is a novel about the preciousness of human relationships and the power of solidarity in a world that is increasingly cold, fast-paced, and virtual.Kim Ji Yoon was born in 1992 and raised in Seoul. She studied at Dankook University, majoring in creative writing for four years. She also attended the Korean Broadcasting Writers' Association training centre to learn how to write for screen, and later completed a drama course. One day, while walking down the noisy streets of Hongdae at night, she suddenly saw a laundromat with yellow and soft lights on, and that gave her the first sentence of Yeonnam-dong's Smiley Laundromat, her first novel. She now writes full time.