Hunger by Choi Jin-young
ROMEO & JULIET meets THE VEGETARIAN, HUNGER is the quarter-of-a-million-copy Korean cult classic phenomenon that defined a generationIt begins at the end. When writer Dam discovers her soulmate, Gu, murdered in cold blood on the street, she cradles his corpse to her chest and begins to tell him one last story. A chain of monologues snaking between this realm and the next coalesce into the timeless tale of two conjoined souls who, together, persevere through adult life in an unidentified Korean city.
It's a love story starved by bad luck and missed chances until death do them part - or part by part as the lovers choose a different ending... Dam confesses that she has been slowly eating Gu, whose cradled corpse she has lovingly washed, embalmed and chosen to bury in her own - where he will rest - forever. At once romantic and horrific, HUNGER is a psychologically thrilling love story cutting to the very heart of existence, grief, and how brutally we rage - tooth and nail - against the savage finality of death.