You were born in Korea, educated in the US, and your work spans the world. Do you think of yourself as belonging to a particular literary tradition?
I believe that I am coming at the end of a very long and celebrated tradition of Korean literature. Korean literature has a couple of distinct qualities. One is pastoralism, and the other is moral duty.
Pastoralism means that we are a people who deeply revere nature and see ourselves as one with it. In Korean philosophy, we call it “All is one, one is all.” We have literature that celebrates nature, and that has heavily influenced my own writing.
The second part is that a writer or a novelist in the Korean context is not someone who just writes a book and is done with it. There is a word, Mun-in, which means “a person of letters.” They don’t just write in one genre — they write across fiction and poetry, are well-versed in philosophy, history, ethics, and also engage in painting and calligraphy. Above all, a Mun-in is someone who has a moral duty to society. That tradition is also how I view my artistry. My artistry is not separate from my advocacy — it’s all one, and that comes directly from the Korean school of thought.
Your first novel, Beasts of a Little Land, is described as an epic about love and war. What did writing it teach you about the kind of writer you wanted to be?
{{/usCountry}}Your first novel, Beasts of a Little Land, is described as an epic about love and war. What did writing it teach you about the kind of writer you wanted to be?
{{/usCountry}}Writing that book taught me everything I needed to know about being a writer and what I needed to do. I didn’t go to school for creative writing. It taught me that the most important thing is to move the reader. You could write a perfectly executed, flawless novel, but if at the end, the reader doesn’t come away with some emotional resonance, then it hasn’t served its purpose.
It also taught me that in order to be a real writer, you have to pour your entire self into it — spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally. You have to give your own vitality to the work, so that it can have a life of its own.
You have spoken about how nature and art are inseparable in your worldview. When was that connection revealed to you?
A couple of years ago, I had an appointment to go to with my parents. I came down from my condo, and in the courtyard, there was a dead baby bird on the ground. I really wanted to take care of it, but my mom said, “Leave it alone.” It was during Covid, and she didn’t want me to get sick, and we also had to leave for the appointment. But when I came back, the dead baby bird was still there. And next to the bird was a tree — and there were two parent birds crying very loudly.
The next day, I came back down. The bird was still there, and one of the parent birds was still there too, crying. It had stayed there for over a day. It wasn’t a remarkable-looking bird — just small and brown. But it very clearly had love for its baby. It gave everything — eating, its safety — just to stay there. So, I went upstairs, got a shoebox and wrapped the bird. I lifted it up to the branch. I said to the mama bird, “Now you can say goodbye.” Then I buried it under the tree. The bird kept watch over me the entire time, and then it flew away.
I never run out of stories because I feel inside me there is a spring of inspiration. I believe that spring is made of tears I shed for the world — for that bird, its mother, for nature. As long as I have empathy, I will always be able to create.
City of Night Birds is such a departure in setting — from Korea to Russia, from history to art. What drew you to the world of ballet, and to a character like Natalia Leonova, who is both artist and survivor?
I grew up learning ballet from the age of nine, along with cello. So, classical music and ballet have always been the longest through lines in my life and my biggest passions. Even though it’s a story about ballet, it’s really about everything I feel as a practising artist.
I wrote City of Night Birds just before and after the publication of my first novel, so I was going through the challenges and rewards of being a professional artist at the time. I poured all of that into it.
The novel is steeped in questions of discipline, sacrifice, and what art takes from the body. Were you also exploring the tension between creation and destruction — the way ambition and pain often coexist in the same space?
The novel is heavily autobiographical. Even though the protagonist is a ballerina and I’m a novelist, her trajectory of sacrifice directly mirrors my experience.
I truly feel that every time I write a book, I’m chipping away from my lifespan. I can feel my vitality decreasing. The way [Natalia] sacrifices for those sublime moments on stage — I experience it in my writing.
You’ve written about political turmoil before, but here, it’s filtered through art — through performance, rather than direct rebellion. What did you discover about power and resistance by looking through that lens?
I’ve been an environmental advocate for the past 20 years, and I’ve had opportunities to think deeply about what creates change. People don’t necessarily need more facts. The facts are already out there. People already know what the problems are, but still the world remains a dark place.
As an artist, I believe art has the power to change the world because it appeals to people’s conscience. Art is a way of saying: I know you’re cynical, but please look at this one more time. Through beauty, we can make people care again.
Your short story collection, A Love Story from the End of the World, which was published recently, looks towards the future — to near-dystopian, climate-altered worlds. What felt urgent for you to write these stories now?
I felt so urgent about publishing a book about ecological destruction that I wanted it to come out as soon as possible. I published it exactly 365 days after my second novel.
I only write about things that I’m obsessed with. My first book was about my roots. My second was about art. My third is about nature — and nature might be the most important to me on the deepest level. We’re seeing an acceleration of planetary destruction, and I wanted to do whatever I could to bring attention to it.
The collection’s title alone feels both hopeful and fatalistic. When you think of love at the “end of the world,” are you imagining it as redemption, defiance, or something quieter?
It’s more than that. If I had to say what I’m trying to tell the world in one word, it’s love. It sounds simple, but it is the deepest truth. If we can truly accept that love is real, universal, and everlasting, then we have a chance to heal the world — not just the ecological destruction, but wars and everything else.
Your sentences often carry a painterly quality — attentive to light, texture, silence. How do you approach language?
I love that you used the word “paint,” because I’m an art history major. I often hear that my writing is called cinematic and visual. That’s because I do actively try to paint everything so that readers can follow where my gaze is.
You’ve said before that writing can be a form of conservation — that beauty itself can be a political act. How do you hold on to that belief in a world that feels increasingly cynical or destructive?
I truly feel that art has the ability to awaken people’s conscience. Even in a cynical world, that belief comes from seeing how people respond to beauty. We already know the facts, but we’ve become numb to them. Art allows us to feel again. It asks us to look again, even when we don’t want to.
Which artists or writers — living or dead — have shaped your sense of how art and ethics intersect?
Leo Tolstoy has had the greatest influence on me. He was a pacifist, a vegetarian, a humanitarian, as well as a novelist. I admire that his responsibility didn’t end between the covers of a book — it extended into the world. I see my responsibility as an artist in the same way.
What kind of stories are you drawn to reading these days?
I’m drawn to stories that feel so real that if you stabbed them with a knife, blood would pour out. I can usually tell when a book hasn’t been written with real intent and seriousness. When a writer puts enough of themselves into it, the book comes alive.
Rutvik Bhandari is an independent writer. He lives in Pune. You can find him talking about books on Instagram and YouTube (@themindlessmess).