I Have the Right to Destroy Myself

Originally published in 1996 as 나는 나를 파괴할 권리가 있다 (Na-neun na-reul pagoehal gwolli-ga issda)

Winner of the 1996 Munhakdongne New Writer Award 

Amid the emotional desolation & stark despair of Seoul, Korea, the unnamed narrator assists the lost & hurting find an escape through peaceful suicide, & two brothers are torn by their mutual love for the same woman, in a collection of interwoven stories set against the backdrop of contemporary Korea.

In the the fast-paced, high-urban landscape of Seoul, C & K are brothers who have fallen in love with the same woman—Se-yeon—who tears at both of them as they all try desperately to find real connection in an atomized world. A spectral, nameless narrator haunts the edges of their lives as he tells of his work helping the lost & hurting find escape through suicide. 

Dreamlike & beautiful, the South Korea brought forth in this novel is cinematic in its urgency & its reflection of contemporary life everywhere—far beyond the boundaries of the Korean peninsula.  Recalling the emotional tension of Milan Kundera & the existential anguish of Bret Easton Ellis, I Have the Right to Destroy Myself achieves its author’s greatest wish—to show Korean literature as part of an international tradition. Young-ha Kim is a young master, the leading literary voice of his generation.

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Young-ha Kim is the author of seven novels—four published in the United States, including the acclaimed I Have the Right to Destroy Myself & the award-winning Black Flower—& five short-story collections. He has won every major Korean literature award, & his works have been translated into more than a dozen languages. He lives in Seoul, South Korea.