About the book: 2024 / Courtesans, tigers and patriots: why is it worth reading the novel "Beasts of the Small Land"? "The novel "Beasts of the Small Land" immerses the reader in the culture and the history of Korea, opening the way to a world where “small” does not always mean “weak”, and strength lies in love.” – Maria Osetrova, orientalist, scientific editor of the work. 1917. Korea is a Japanese colony. A peasant family in desperate straits sells their ten-year-old daughter named Yashma to a courtesan school. Her only close friend is the orphan boy Jongho, a beggar from the streets of Seoul. Having matured, Jongho will be involved in the revolutionary struggle for the country's independence, and Yashma will become a sought-after artist. Wherever the fate of Juhe Kim's characters takes him: from the fashionable cafes of Seoul to the snow-covered forests of Manchuria, and somewhere between the pages a tiger lurks. “Beasts of a Small Land” is a work for those who are not afraid of studying the ambiguous pages of history and are ready to personally understand the intricacies of time." – Anna Semida, Japanese scholar, scientific editor of the work “This is an unusually humane and very tender novel about the cruelty of life, a work about how fate completely unexpectedly brings people together, and about how such meetings, even the most fleeting ones, influence our further path." – Kirill Batygin, translator