Join us on Thursday, November 13th as we welcome Jinwoo Park for the release of Oxford Soju Club. He will be joined by author Meng Jin! RSVP is not required, but appreciated. Seats are limited and can be guaranteed with the purchase of a book or a $3 sliding scale donation to our program.

About the book

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.

About the author

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. After obtaining his master’s degree in creative writing at the University of Oxford in 2015, he has worked as a marketer in various fields. In 2021 he won the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers’ Award for his first fiction manuscript, Oxford Soju Club, which was published by Dundurn Press in September 2025.

Meng Jin is the author of the novel little gods (Custom House) and the short story collection Self-Portrait with Ghost (Mariner). She is a Kundiman fellow, a David TK Wong fellow, a Steinbeck fellow, and indebted to many other institutions, granting bodies, and kind humans for their support. Her short fiction has been anthologized in the Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prizes, and her books have been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner, PEN/Open Book Award, NYPL Young Lions Prize, and the LATimes First Fiction Prize. She is currently writing a fake memoir, for which she received a 2021 Creative Capital Award.

About the bookstore

The Booksmith is an independent bookstore located in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco since 1976.

Please note:

• Check-in for the event will begin at 6:45pm.
• Priced ticket holders (Book+seat, Pay it Forward!+seat) will have seats held until 7pm. Arrivals after 7pm will be allowed admission, but seats are not guaranteed.
• General admission ticket holders will be offered seats at check-in on a first-come, first-served basis. May be standing room.
• Space at the door on the day of the event is usually available, but not guaranteed.
• Books will be for sale on the night of the event.
• ADA accessible. Bathrooms on site during event hours.
• Events typically end between 8:30 and 9pm.
• Questions? [email protected]