Overseas sales of translated Korean literature hit record 1.2 million copies in 2025

Overseas sales of translated works of Korean literature topped a record 1.2 million copies last year on the back of an expanding readership across different genres, data showed on Tuesday.

Overseas sales of works that received translation or publication support from the Literature Translation Institute (LTI) of Korea reached the figure in 2025, up 228 copies from the previous year, according to data compiled by the institution.

Accumulated sales of 1,026 translated works published in some 40 different languages came to around 3.6 million copies from 2021 through 2025, it added.

LTI Korea attributed the strong sales to the growing demand for a diverse range of translated Korean literary works rather than just a few best-sellers.

Meanwhile, among the best-sellers was Nobel laureate Han Kang’s “We Do Not Part” (2021), which sold some 300,000 copies in 13 countries from 2023 through 2025.

“Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop” (2023), a novel by Hwang Bo-reum, sold a combined 88,000 copies, and “The Second Chance Convenience Store” (2025) by Kim Ho-yeon sold a combined 66,000 copies, according to the data.

Yonhap