Book Launch: Oxford Soju Club with Jinwoo Park

Join us on Wednesday, October 1 at 7 PM as we celebrate the release of author Jinwoo Park's debut novel, Oxford Soju Club! Jinwoo will be joined in conversation by Simone Siew, and a signing will follow discussion.

The natural enemy of a Korean is another Korean.When North Korean spymaster Doha Kim is mysteriously killed in Oxford, his protégé, Yohan Kim, chases the only breadcrumb given to him in Doha's last breath: "Soju Club, Dr. Ryu." In the meantime, a Korean American CIA agent, Yunah Choi, races to salvage her investigation of the North Korean spy cell in the aftermath of the assassination. At the centre of it all is the Soju Club, the only Korean restaurant in Oxford, owned by Jihoon Lim, an immigrant from Seoul in search of a new life after suffering a tragedy. As different factions move in with their own agendas, their fates become entangled, resulting in a bitter struggle that will determine whose truth will triumph.Oxford Soju Club weaves a tale of how immigrants in the Korean diaspora are forced to create identities to survive, and how in the end, they must shed those masks and seek their true selves.

Jinwoo Park is a Korean Canadian writer and literary translator based in Montreal. Born in Seoul, he has lived in various parts of North America and the UK since the age of 11. He obtained his bachelor’s degree from McGill in 2013, followed by a master’s in political economics from LSE in 2014, and a master’s in creative writing at the University of Oxford in 2015. In 2021 he won the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers’ Award for his first fiction manuscript, Oxford Soju Club, which will be published by Dundurn Press in September 2025.

Simone Siew is a Chicago-based writer and literary influencer, and she also serves as the official social media partner for Penguin Random House. She recently graduated from the University of Chicago with a master's degree in English literature and creative writing. Prior to that, she obtained her bachelor's degree from Indiana University in 2019. She loves blending her Chinese Malaysian roots with her midwestern upbringing, binging tv shows, and learning new hobbies. She is currently working on her first novel.

Host or Publisher Call & Response Books