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Jung Yun

Biography

Jung Yun

Jung Yun was born in Seoul, South Korea, and grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. She received her MFA in English and creative writing at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of O BEAUTIFUL, which was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a New York Times Group Read, and a San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year. Her debut novel, SHELTER, was longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize.

Jung Yun

Books by Jung Yun

by Jung Yun - Fiction

It’s Sunday, September 16, 2001. Franny and her husband have traded in their elegant Park Avenue co-op for a suite on board the Sonata, a once-glittering cruise ship with a complicated history now long past its prime. Though they’re not “cruise people,” Franny is determined to host the trip as planned because it’s her mother’s 70th birthday, or chilsun, a major rite of passage celebrated by Korean families. But as her husband keeps pointing out, Franny and her mother aren’t close, and it is surreal --- even wrong --- to be on a cruise as the death toll from the attacks on 9/11 continues to rise. ALL THE WORLD CAN HOLD explores how we balance our needs and our wants, as well as the regrets we live with and the chances to set them right.

by Jung Yun - Fiction

Elinor Hanson is struggling to reinvent herself as a freelance writer when she receives an unexpected assignment, a chance to write for a prestigious magazine about the Bakken oil boom in North Dakota. Elinor grew up near the Bakken, raised by an overbearing father and a distant Korean mother. After decades away from home, Elinor returns to a landscape she hardly recognizes. Surrounded by roughnecks seeking their fortunes in oil and long-time residents worried about their changing community, Elinor experiences a profound sense of alienation and grief. The longer she pursues this potentially career-altering assignment, the more her past intertwines with the story she’s trying to tell, revealing disturbing new realities that will forever change her and the way she looks at the world.

by Jung Yun - Fiction

Kyung Cho is a young father burdened by a house he can’t afford. For years, he and his wife, Gillian, have lived beyond their means. Now their debts and bad decisions are catching up with them. A few miles away, his parents, Jin and Mae, live in the town’s most exclusive neighborhood. Growing up, they gave him every possible advantage but never showed him kindness. Yet when an act of violence leaves Jin and Mae unable to live on their own, the dynamic suddenly changes, and he’s compelled to take them in. Tensions quickly mount as Kyung’s proximity to his parents forces old feelings of guilt and anger to the surface.