Lemon

Translated by Janet Hong

This is not a murder story. It is the story of those left behind. Parasite meets The Good Son in this piercing psychological portrait of three women haunted by a brutal, unsolved crime.

In the summer of 2002, Kim Hae-on was killed in what became known as the High School Beauty Murder. There were two suspects- Shin Jeongjun, who had a rock-solid alibi, and Han Manu, to whom no evidence could be pinned. The case went cold.

Seventeen years pass without justice, and the grief and uncertainty take a cruel toll on her younger sister, Da-on, in particular. Unable to move on with her life, Da-on tries in her own twisted way to recover some of what she's lost, ultimately setting out to find the truth of what happened.

Shifting between the perspectives of Da-on and two of Hae-on's classmates, Lemon ostensibly takes the shape of a crime novel. But identifying the perpetrator is not the main objective here — Kwon Yeo-sun uses this well-worn form to craft a searing, timely exploration of privilege, jealousy, trauma, and how we live with the wrongs we have endured and inflicted in turn.

'Chilling, suspenseful and disconcerting. A story of taking things into one's own hands, when driven to despair by injustice and grief. I couldn't put it down and read deep into the night until I finished it, with my heart hammering' — Frances Cha, author of If I Had Your Face

ISBN: 9781800241497 | Published: 1 November 2022 | Paperback | 176 pages