Hunger: Romeo & Juliet meets The Vegetarian in the Korean cult classic that sold half a million copies

Proof of Gu opens with a death of a lover. Finding her partner Gu's lifeless body, Dam is filled with the emptiness that accompanies grief. But as she speaks to Gu, who lies dead on the street, she reaffirms the love that has been extinguished.

Dam's monologues explore their past, interspersed with passages from Gu's perspective.

Together, their accounts build a picture of their lives. Despite the hardships that knock them off track, we see the lovers' destiny they shared, two dots meeting along their orbits on the curve of life.

And all the while in the present, Dam eats, slowly consuming the dead body - this act of eating, a ritual to preserve their past whole, and a metaphysical proof of undying love.

This romance horror novella questioning the meaning of life and death through the loss and mourning of a lost love.


Proof of Gu spent over 30 weeks in the country's Fiction Bestseller list and has hit a quarter of a million copies since publication - a rare milestone for a literary title in Korea - with readers falling for its depiction of destiny, tragedy and love.