In 1985, the year she turned 22, her novella Winter Fable won a new writers’ prize from Munye Joongang and she made her debut. In 1990, she published her first story collection, Winter Fable.
The breakthrough yearThe year she turned 30, she published her second collection, Where the Harmonium Once Stood, and the phrase “Shin Kyung-sook syndrome” went around as her name came up so often. That year she won the Hankook Ilbo Literature Prize.
In 1994, she published Deep Sorrow, which became a bestseller. In 1995, she published A Lone Room, which portrays her own years of growing up, and received the Hyundae Literature Award.
In 1996, she received the Manhae Literature Prize. In 1997, she received the Dong-in Literary Award. In 1999, she married the poet and critic Nam Jin-woo, and at the end of the year “He Doesn’t Know the Place” was chosen as the winning work of the 21st Century Literature Award.
In 2001, “Buseoksa” was chosen as the winning work of the Yi Sang Literary Award. In 2006, she received the Oh Young-su Literary Award. In 2007, she published Yi Jin, her first new novel in six years.
In 2008, she published Please Look After Mom, which sold 150,000 copies in a month. In 2009, it passed 1 million copies 10 months after publication. In 2010, she published the novel I’ll Be Right There. In 2011, the English edition of Please Look After Mom came out from Knopf in the U.S.
In March 2012, she became the first Korean writer to win the Man Asian Literary Prize, and in April Please Look After Mom passed 2 million copies in Korea. In 2013, she published a short book. In 2014, the English edition of I’ll Be Right There came out in the U.S. In June 2015, a plagiarism claim was raised. In an interview she apologized, and said she would remove the work in question from the collection and step back from public roles.
In 2018, the English edition of Yi Jin was published in New York. In 2021, she published the novel I Went to See My Father and returned officially after six years. In 2022, she published the essay collection Yoga Dallyeowatseumnida. In 2023, she published her first linked story collection, Jakbyeol Gyeoteseo.
In 2025, she published a revised edition of A Lone Room after 30 years, and in November began serializing a new work on Millie Road. As of July 2026, the year she turned 63, the serial had reached 140,000 cumulative views on Millie Road.
Shin Kyung-sook (born 1963) debuted in 1985, the year she turned 22, by winning a new writers’ prize from Munye Joongang, and became known after publishing her second collection, Where the Harmonium Once Stood, in 1993, the year she turned 30. On Mar 15, 2012, the year she turned 49, she became the first Korean writer to win the Man Asian Literary Prize.
Ages are by calendar year (the year minus the birth year), birthdays aside.