ReadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2025

A Love Story from the End of the World

Juhea Kim author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:HarperCollins Publishers

Published:20th Nov '25

Should be back in stock very soon

A Love Story from the End of the World cover

The first short story collection from the #1 bestselling Korean author

From the acclaimed author of Beasts of a Little Land and Reese’s Book Club pick City of Night Birds, an exquisite story collection about humans in precarious balance with the natural world.

‘A rare jewel … essential reading for right now’ COCO MELLORS‘Kim’s work is ambitious, elegant and deeply intellectual’ PANDORA SYKES

‘In this collection, love becomes a framework for understanding what is worth saving: the natural world, our capacity for human connection and the fragile but resilient threads that bind them. What emerges is not a pessimistic vision of apocalypse but a meditation on empathy and tenderness when such sentiments feel otherwise lost’ AnOther Magazine

'Encapsulates our very moment of ecological crisis' Country and Town House

What does it mean to live on our miraculous planet?

Vivid, transportive, and heartfelt, each of these ten stories is a reflection of individual choice in the face of manmade apocalypse: in a near-future Seoul encased by a translucent biodome, a civil engineer charged with its upkeep contemplates an arranged marriage. An American painter travels to the South of France and is seduced by an entrepreneur who claims to have unlocked human consciousness. And where the Indian and Pacific Oceans meet, on an island that has turned into a gargantuan landfill from other countries’ waste, a boy has a fateful brush with K-pop superstars.

For readers of Richard Powers, Elif Shafak and Barbara Kingsolver, Juhea Kim’s first story collection views our world from breathtaking heights. A Love Story from the End of the World is an impassioned reminder that our humanity – and our best hope – will always be found in nature.

'Each [story] grapples with the precarity of life on our small blue planet… but always in tandem with emotional precarity of the individuals who populate them. There’s playfulness to be had, too… Just lovely' Marie Claire

'In this collection, love becomes a framework for understanding what is worth saving: the natural world, our capacity for human connection and the fragile but resilient threads that bind them. What emerges is not a pessimistic vision of apocalypse but a meditation on empathy and tenderness when such sentiments feel otherwise lost’ AnOther magazine

'Juhea Kim’s haunting, poetic prose explores climate change in 10 different fantastic, speculative short stories. Propelled by Kim’s love for humanity and her deep knowledge of nature and wildlife, the book is imaginative and thought-provoking' Christian Science Monitor

ISBN: 9780008785802

Dimensions: 216mm x 135mm x 22mm

Weight: 240g

224 pages