Crystal Hana Kim is the author of If You Leave Me, which was a Booklist Editor’s Choice title, Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and named a best book of 2018 by over a dozen publications. If You Leave Me is an emotionally riveting debut novel about war, family, and love—the unforgettable saga of refugees in Korea and the heartbreaking choices they’re forced to make in the years surrounding the civil war that still haunts us today. Described as “stunning” by The Washington Post and “beautifully layered as it is devastating” by Elle Magazine, If You Leave Me examines the history of The Korean War and its ramifications across generations through a multi-voiced, multilayered narrative that traverses five poetic, nuanced narrators who hunger for choice and change in a tumultuous and modernizing Korea.
Her second novel, The Stone Home, was released from William Morrow / HarperCollins in 2024. Inspired by real events, told through alternating timelines and two intimate perspectives, The Stone Home is a deeply affecting story of a mother and daughter’s love and a pair of brothers whose bond is put to an unfathomably difficult test. Capturing a shameful period of history with breathtaking restraint and tenderness, Crystal Hana Kim weaves a lyrical exploration of the legacy of violence and the complicated psychology of power, while showcasing the extraordinary acts of devotion and friendship that can arise in the darkness.
A 2022 recipient of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award, a 2022 Creative Capital Award Finalist, a 2021 Jerome Hill Artist Finalist, and a 2017 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize winner, her work has been published in Elle Magazine, The Paris Review, Glamour Magazine, Guernica, and elsewhere.
“Through her luminous talent, perfect prose, and unwavering narrative might, Crystal Hana Kim transforms a difficult historical moment into a moving portrait of generational strife and familial devotion. To what extent will we go to protect the ones we love? To protect the truth? The human heart is fallible yet also miraculous in what it can endure. Here is a book that entwines the stories of many into one collective, beating heart.”
