The Vanguard: A Tale of Korea by James Scarth Gale

An American missionary tells about his life in Korea at the end of the 19th century, before the Japanese Occupation and the fall of the Kingdom/Empire. Living with a houseboy, called “the dragon” in a small town north of Pyeongyang, Gale became fully immersed in the culture, and describes his earnest efforts to provide both spiritual relief and assistance toward a small community bound by poverty. He witnessed a Japanese invasion and its bloody aftermath. Along with the archaic language, the narrative reveals an immediacy of time and place, with photographs enhancing the visual picture of this rarely seen Western perspective and view of Korea's recent past. Published in 1904. Also see Lillian Underwood’s memoir, Fifteen Years Among the Top-Knots: Life in Korea.

A Concise History of Korea by Michael J. Seth

If you will read only one book about Korean history, this is the one. Seth organizes and edits Korea's rich and vast history into a digestible and coherent whole, covering its legendary origins and through the 19th century. Seth presents Korea in terms of how the influences of its geographic neighbors, Japan and China, were uniquely transformed by the peninsula rather than being adopted wholesale, or being infused into the culture by force. Especially useful for western readers, Korean history is seen in the context of East Asian history, the development of Confucian mores in Korea, and how its geopolitical position gave it unaccountable strength as well as led to its ultimate demise with the Japanese Occupation of 1910-1945. The inclusion of translated snippets from historical documents (the SILLOK), a glossary and extensive Notes only add to the precision and usefulness of this book. Unlike other Korean histories written in English, this volume presents an unbiased, respectful, culturally aware, humanistic and modern view.

Korea Between Empires 1895-1919 by Andre Schmid

A unique perspective on a rarely visited period of Korean modern history. Studies of media of the day provide a vivid popular cultural point of view on massive change that ended a centuries-old dynastic tradition, and ushered Korea unwillingly, and under subjugation, into the modern age.

The Bitter Fruit of Kom-Pawi by Taiwon Koh

One of the earlier Korean-American memoirs (published 1959), this was written to thank people who helped the author locate and send her three children to meet her and her husband in America, after the Korean War. The narrative is factual, dry, sometimes proselytizing, but the story itself is naturally compelling and full of fascinating cultural details that describe life in Seoul in the years toward the end of the Japanese Occupation and prior to the Korean War. This book is hard to find, and is Christian-themed.

Forever Alien: A Korean Memoir by Sunny Che

Interspersed with historical information, this memoir recounts the trials of a young Korean girl growing up in Japan during Japan's occupation of Korea, through liberation and the beginning of the Korean War. She faces racial prejudice, poverty and the mother dies from gangrene. A grisly detail describes her infection dripping from the coffin. The father becomes a licensed acupuncturist and life improves, although an evil stepmother, war, and moving back to Korea bring problems. The narrator eventually makes it to America with U.S. missionary help.

Secondhand World by Katherine Min

Written in short-short (2-3 pages) chapters with beautiful precision, stirring imagery, emotional depth and a compelling sense of imminent tragedy (opens with her in a burn ward, both parents dead), the story charts silences in a death-quieted household and the resulting isolation of all three family members. Isa has a remote mathematical father, beautiful expressive mother, a younger brother who dies at 4 (run over by a truck delivering mother's coveted dishwasher), a hippie girl and her family as friends, an albino boyfriend who makes her feel less other with sex, or perhaps it only seemed this way because it is depicted graphically.