Author Cho Ye-eun cooks up sweet horror concoction in 'The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre'
Published: 07 Jan. 2025, 07:00
Updated: 08 Jan. 2025, 14:55
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- LEE JIAN
- [email protected]
Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI
[Page-turners]
As translated fiction enters the global limelight, Korean books are being discovered by a wider audience beyond the country's borders. With the help of the massive inventory retained by DB Books, Korea’s oldest independent book dealer, the Korea JoongAng Daily sought out hidden gems on its shelves. In this interview series, we find them for you and talk to the creatives behind them.
![Author Cho Ye-eun speaks to the Korea JoongAng Daily in an interview at DB Books' office in Seongdong District, western Seoul, on Oct. 22, 2024. [PARK SANG-MOON]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/01/08/c9a01a6c-546a-4200-b88e-90cec8e71c8d.jpg)
Death takes on an unsettling sweetness in the dystopian horror “The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre.”
The 2019 novel, written by Cho Ye-eun — one of the most sought-after authors for young readers in Korea — is her first work to be published in English.
“The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre” is a chilling fantasy and social commentary set in a Seoul amusement park where visitors mysteriously dissolve into sticky globs of saccharine pink jellies.
As innocently amusing as that concept may sound, the novel quickly veers toward grotesque horror — with limbs squashed like pudding, organs entangled with translucent goo and the sickly sweet stench of the park submerged in a sea of jellied corpses.
Cho described the book as “kitsch” — overly eccentric yet, ironically, enjoyable.
“I am very curious as to how people outside Korea will receive the book because it is unconventional,” she told the Korea JoongAng Daily in an interview at DB Books’ office in Seongdong District, eastern Seoul.
“Even as I reread the book now, I find a certain unfiltered rhythm to it that is unique. I think this story and style of writing were possible because it was written when I was starting as a professional author.”
![The English language cover of Cho Ye-eun's thriller fiction ″The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre″ [LEE JIAN]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/01/08/05577a26-c375-4ae1-b77f-2d2226666cc0.jpg)
Cho, 32, is an uncut gem in the contemporary Korean fiction world.
She graduated from Seoul National University of Science and Technology with a bachelor’s degree in metal art design, never planning or studying to become a writer. However, during her senior year, a part-time job blogging about plays and musicals reignited her love for writing — a passion that had surfaced occasionally during her school years. On a whim, she entered a fiction writing contest held by local publisher Golden Bough and won a prize. It led her to pursue a career as an author.
At 27, Cho became a bestselling author, selling over 100,000 copies of her short story compilation “Cocktail, Love, Zombie” (2020) upon release. It contains Cho’s debut novella that won the Golden Bough Prize, “Overlap Knife, Knife,” where two females — one who kills her father, who killed her mother, and another whose ex-boyfriend stalks her — are approached by a mysterious figure who offers to turn back the clock for them. Whether they choose to repeat the past or change is up to them.
All of Cho’s work until this point is tied to horror, whether it is body horror like “The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre” or falls into the occult, slasher, zombie or witchcraft subgenres.
“I have an affinity for anything horror,” Cho said. “Even before I knew that it was a genre, I just liked ghost stories and urban legends. I definitely feel scared, but enjoy the thrill of it.”
As a writer, the genre intrigues her because it gives agency to the dead.
“Dead people often don’t get a voice in other genres, but in horror stories, they can speak or move things that shape the plot,” she said.
![Author Cho Ye-eun speaks to the Korea JoongAng Daily in an interview at DB Books' office in Seongdong District, western Seoul, on Oct. 22, 2024. [PARK SANG-MOON]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/01/08/dc8a9ec7-c461-49fa-bc1c-cf096c300932.jpg)
“The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre” is also a poignant social commentary told from various perspectives of Korea’s working class, such as a young couple who met in southern Seoul's Noryangjin-dong, a single mother and the park’s part-time workers in mascot costumes.
Shifting among the different voices, the story blurs the lines between victims and perpetrators, depicting human innocence against societal violence and revealing how easily self-will and values are lost to circumstance.
The book gains momentum as the multiple voices, which act like individual puzzle pieces, start to click together and create one giant sketch of the jelly massacre. The ending is a sharp U-turn from fantasy, leaving a deeply unsettling impression of reality with no attempt to sugarcoat it.
Despite tackling complex issues, Cho said “The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre” was conceived using one simple image: people melting like jelly in the heat.
“It was the summer of 2018, and it was particularly hot that year in Korea,” she recalled, “and I’d find myself and others constantly telling each other that we felt like we were melting from the heat. One day, I thought, ‘What if I wrote a story about that?’ I became really excited because I knew I’d have a lot of fun writing it.”
She said the method was unique when writing “The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre.” “Nowadays, I tend to spend a longer time thinking about the book before writing it, but because ‘New Seoul Park’ was written when I was such a rookie, that created a kind of raw and unique writing style.”
Cho said she feels she has lost that experimentative spirit she harbored at the beginning of her career, though her readers may argue otherwise. Her creativity and eccentric spirit, which almost feel empowering, are easily spotted across her portfolio after “The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre.”
For instance, “Cocktail, Love, Zombie” examines Korea’s patriarchy with a father who turns into a zombie and tries to eat his wife and daughter.
Her recent novel “The Fin In My Mouth” (translated, 2024) reimagines a Siren from Greek mythology, a female humanlike being with an alluring voice, as a mermaid who puts people under a curse through her beautiful singing. As a human falls for this mermaid, the book explores the tenacious and destructive power of love.
Cho’s works are widely popular among young women in their teens to their 30s, many of whom aren’t traditional fans of horror content.
The author ascribed the phenomenon to using females as protagonists as well as her calibrated approach to the genre.
“Growing up, there weren’t very many female main characters that helmed horror stories, and there was always a part of me that wished some of those stories were told from a female perspective so that I could better sympathize with the main characters. Part of that, I think, is why I wanted to write horror stories.”
She continued, “I also wanted a finely tuned narrative with gore or ghosts. That technique is why I think young females have become my main audience.
“I am always really happy to hear readers say that they never knew they enjoyed the horror genre so much until they read one of my books!”
Now, almost 10 years into her career, Cho said she still feels grateful and lucky every day.
“Writing my first book was the first time in my life that I genuinely had fun doing something,’” she said. “It may not sound significant, but before I discovered my joy for writing, I lost interest in things very quickly. I always perceived that as a critical flaw that I had. But now I know that I can persist, and I hope to do this for a long, long time.”
With a glint of ambition, she added, “I also hope that each work I write is a step — a step toward a book that I will write in the future. I don’t know what it will be yet!”
The English-language copy of "The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre" by Cho Ye-eun and translated by Yewon Jung is available on DB Books' official website.
BY LEE JIAN [[email protected]]
As translated fiction enters the global limelight, Korean books are being discovered by a wider audience beyond the country's borders. With the help of the massive inventory retained by DB Books, Korea’s oldest independent book dealer, the Korea JoongAng Daily sought out hidden gems on its shelves. In this interview series, we find them for you and talk to the creatives behind them.
Author Cho Ye-eun speaks to the Korea JoongAng Daily in an interview at DB Books' office in Seongdong District, western Seoul, on Oct. 22, 2024. [PARK SANG-MOON]
Death takes on an unsettling sweetness in the dystopian horror “The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre.”
The 2019 novel, written by Cho Ye-eun — one of the most sought-after authors for young readers in Korea — is her first work to be published in English.
“The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre” is a chilling fantasy and social commentary set in a Seoul amusement park where visitors mysteriously dissolve into sticky globs of saccharine pink jellies.
As innocently amusing as that concept may sound, the novel quickly veers toward grotesque horror — with limbs squashed like pudding, organs entangled with translucent goo and the sickly sweet stench of the park submerged in a sea of jellied corpses.
Cho described the book as “kitsch” — overly eccentric yet, ironically, enjoyable.
“I am very curious as to how people outside Korea will receive the book because it is unconventional,” she told the Korea JoongAng Daily in an interview at DB Books’ office in Seongdong District, eastern Seoul.
“Even as I reread the book now, I find a certain unfiltered rhythm to it that is unique. I think this story and style of writing were possible because it was written when I was starting as a professional author.”
The English language cover of Cho Ye-eun's thriller fiction ″The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre″ [LEE JIAN]
Cho, 32, is an uncut gem in the contemporary Korean fiction world.
She graduated from Seoul National University of Science and Technology with a bachelor’s degree in metal art design, never planning or studying to become a writer. However, during her senior year, a part-time job blogging about plays and musicals reignited her love for writing — a passion that had surfaced occasionally during her school years. On a whim, she entered a fiction writing contest held by local publisher Golden Bough and won a prize. It led her to pursue a career as an author.
At 27, Cho became a bestselling author, selling over 100,000 copies of her short story compilation “Cocktail, Love, Zombie” (2020) upon release. It contains Cho’s debut novella that won the Golden Bough Prize, “Overlap Knife, Knife,” where two females — one who kills her father, who killed her mother, and another whose ex-boyfriend stalks her — are approached by a mysterious figure who offers to turn back the clock for them. Whether they choose to repeat the past or change is up to them.
All of Cho’s work until this point is tied to horror, whether it is body horror like “The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre” or falls into the occult, slasher, zombie or witchcraft subgenres.
“I have an affinity for anything horror,” Cho said. “Even before I knew that it was a genre, I just liked ghost stories and urban legends. I definitely feel scared, but enjoy the thrill of it.”
As a writer, the genre intrigues her because it gives agency to the dead.
“Dead people often don’t get a voice in other genres, but in horror stories, they can speak or move things that shape the plot,” she said.
Author Cho Ye-eun speaks to the Korea JoongAng Daily in an interview at DB Books' office in Seongdong District, western Seoul, on Oct. 22, 2024. [PARK SANG-MOON]
“The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre” is also a poignant social commentary told from various perspectives of Korea’s working class, such as a young couple who met in southern Seoul's Noryangjin-dong, a single mother and the park’s part-time workers in mascot costumes.
Shifting among the different voices, the story blurs the lines between victims and perpetrators, depicting human innocence against societal violence and revealing how easily self-will and values are lost to circumstance.
The book gains momentum as the multiple voices, which act like individual puzzle pieces, start to click together and create one giant sketch of the jelly massacre. The ending is a sharp U-turn from fantasy, leaving a deeply unsettling impression of reality with no attempt to sugarcoat it.
Despite tackling complex issues, Cho said “The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre” was conceived using one simple image: people melting like jelly in the heat.
“It was the summer of 2018, and it was particularly hot that year in Korea,” she recalled, “and I’d find myself and others constantly telling each other that we felt like we were melting from the heat. One day, I thought, ‘What if I wrote a story about that?’ I became really excited because I knew I’d have a lot of fun writing it.”
She said the method was unique when writing “The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre.” “Nowadays, I tend to spend a longer time thinking about the book before writing it, but because ‘New Seoul Park’ was written when I was such a rookie, that created a kind of raw and unique writing style.”
Cho said she feels she has lost that experimentative spirit she harbored at the beginning of her career, though her readers may argue otherwise. Her creativity and eccentric spirit, which almost feel empowering, are easily spotted across her portfolio after “The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre.”
For instance, “Cocktail, Love, Zombie” examines Korea’s patriarchy with a father who turns into a zombie and tries to eat his wife and daughter.
Her recent novel “The Fin In My Mouth” (translated, 2024) reimagines a Siren from Greek mythology, a female humanlike being with an alluring voice, as a mermaid who puts people under a curse through her beautiful singing. As a human falls for this mermaid, the book explores the tenacious and destructive power of love.
Cho’s works are widely popular among young women in their teens to their 30s, many of whom aren’t traditional fans of horror content.
The author ascribed the phenomenon to using females as protagonists as well as her calibrated approach to the genre.
“Growing up, there weren’t very many female main characters that helmed horror stories, and there was always a part of me that wished some of those stories were told from a female perspective so that I could better sympathize with the main characters. Part of that, I think, is why I wanted to write horror stories.”
She continued, “I also wanted a finely tuned narrative with gore or ghosts. That technique is why I think young females have become my main audience.
“I am always really happy to hear readers say that they never knew they enjoyed the horror genre so much until they read one of my books!”
Now, almost 10 years into her career, Cho said she still feels grateful and lucky every day.
“Writing my first book was the first time in my life that I genuinely had fun doing something,’” she said. “It may not sound significant, but before I discovered my joy for writing, I lost interest in things very quickly. I always perceived that as a critical flaw that I had. But now I know that I can persist, and I hope to do this for a long, long time.”
With a glint of ambition, she added, “I also hope that each work I write is a step — a step toward a book that I will write in the future. I don’t know what it will be yet!”
The English-language copy of "The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre" by Cho Ye-eun and translated by Yewon Jung is available on DB Books' official website.
BY LEE JIAN [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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