Oxford Soju Club

This is welcome news for the Canadian literary scene. Oxford Soju Club, the first novel by Montreal-born Korean-Canadian author Jinwoo Park, is garnering significant attention. Published in September 2025 by Dundurn Press, the book is a spy thriller set in the back alleys of Oxford. It deeply portrays the pain of the Korean diaspora and has received a rating of over 4.5 stars on Goodreads. The author, who holds a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from Oxford University, is the 2021 winner of the prestigious Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award, which discovers new Asian-Canadian talent. He has described this novel as a work of "self-healing" that resolves his own struggles with identity.

The power of the novel lies in its themes. The core sentiment is captured in the sentence, "A Korean's natural enemy is another Korean." It tells the story of how the "masks" immigrants wear to survive in the West ultimately end up hurting one another. While the novel uses the spy genre to explore the "masks" of survival and diasporic identity, it is also a journey of self-discovery. Critics have highly praised the emotional depth of the character Jihoon and the structural use of perspective, noting the arrival of a new voice in Korean diasporic literature. The lives of North Korean spy Yohan Kim (alias Junichi Nakamura), CIA agent Yuna Choi (alias Sunhye), and Korean restaurant owner Jihoon Lim become intertwined. They feel lonely—branded as traitors in their homeland and treated as strangers abroad. A puff of a Korean 'This' cigarette or the scent of kimchi stew lingering on a soju glass symbolizes their pain. Many media outlets have praised the work as a "debut that introduces the diaspora to the world," noting that it "infuses psychological healing into spy action to offer universal resonance." Numerous reviews have declared it an early sensation, stating that it "perfectly captured the universality of the diaspora experience."

The plot is fast-paced. North Korean spy Doha Kim is assassinated in Oxford. His protégé, Yohan, chases the clues: "Soju Club, Dr. Ryu." Yuna investigates the North Korean network, and their paths converge at Jihoon’s restaurant. Jihoon is an immigrant who came to Oxford after losing his family in Seoul. His shop becomes both a sanctuary and a battlefield. Betrayal and murder ensue. Through flashbacks, Yohan’s time as an orphan, Yuna’s trauma in the US, and Jihoon’s solitude are revealed. The secrets of Dr. Ryu and conflicts of loyalty explode at the climax, leading to a heartbreakingly tragic conclusion. In an interview with Foreword Reviews, the author described the work as "a book that healed my identity."

The structure is clever. It shifts between multiple viewpoints and oscillates between the past and present. Each chapter unfolds through the eyes of Yohan, Yuna, or Jihoon. The pace accelerates in the second half, bringing the tension to a peak. Though compressed into 230 pages, it possesses great depth. Critics have lauded the emotional portrayal of Jihoon and the narrative structure, continuing the praise for this "new voice in diaspora literature." To summarize: the plot is fast, the structure is clever, and the power of the theme is formidable—meaning it is destined to be a bestseller.

A warm sorrow permeates the pages like the steam in Jihoon’s kitchen. It is a monumental debut in Korean immigrant literature. You will practically smell the scent of soju as you read. Highly recommended as a must-read!