[Uncharted Koreatown] Meeting Han Kang in the City of Light

City Lights Booksellers & Publishers | Photo © KARA SF, 2025.

Once, stories had texture—the weight of ink pressed into paper, the grain of pages turned by restless hands. Once, letters shone brighter than neon, lighting up a city built on words. San Francisco, the city of gold and flickering signs, was illuminated not just by streetlights but by paperback books.

Among them, those from City Lights Booksellers & Publishers stand apart. Every book sold here carries the spirit of the Beat Generation—a blend of exhaustion and empowerment, rebellion and rhythm. More than a bookstore, it has been a sanctuary for free thought, a hub for those who challenge authority, a press that prints what others would ban.

A Store of Stories, A History of Resistance

From its founding in 1953, City Lights has refused to conform. At a time when paperbacks were dismissed as lesser books, this store embraced them, printing and distributing works that others deemed unfit for literature. The owners were writers, the visitors were poets, and every reader who stepped inside was, perhaps, an author in waiting.

Here, books were not just sold; they stood trial—literally. When City Lights published Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, it faced an obscenity trial that could have silenced an entire literary movement. Instead, the store and its people fought back, never bowing to pressure, never ceasing to print words that shook the world. Even now, City Lights carries books that reveal uncomfortable truths, expose beautiful lies, and hold space for unrealized dreams. This is not a bookstore that plays it safe. Language knows no borders here.

Han Kang’s Presence on the Shelves

For Koreans, it is moving to see our writers among these rebellious pages. Han Kang, the Nobel Prize winner, stands alongside the literary greats of the world. Her novel The Vegetarian, with its haunting red background and black silhouette of a woman sprouting flowers, sits on the shelves, waiting.

Han Kang’s prose is both rooted and sprouting—her writing pierces, unsettles, lingers. The sharpness of her words licks at violence, unease, making the reader pause, breathe, and confront. Her descriptions are vivid, striking, and relentless, yet they also carry the quiet beauty of resistance, much like City Lights itself.

A bookstore that stays open late—until 10 PM, seven days a week—feels like the perfect home for Han Kang’s words. Just as this bookstore defied literary conventions, Han Kang’s writing transcends boundaries—a sharp, brilliant light cutting through the dark.

A Light That Never Goes Out

We, as Koreans, take pride in knowing that our writers are part of this legacy, part of the glow that keeps this city of literature alive. City Lights is more than a store—it is an ever-burning beacon of textured, sharp light, shining across San Francisco, all day and all night.

🙌 Want to learn more? Visit the bookstore in person—or explore its history online. [Link]