This debut novel sketches the barbaric politics of elementary school with terrifying clarity the narrative turn is both exuberantly postmodern and in dead earnest.’ The New Yorker
The Impossible Fairy Tale is the story of two unexceptional grade-school girls.

Mia is ‘lucky’ she is spoiled by her mother and her two fathers. She gloats over her exotic imported color pencils and won’t be denied a coveted sweater. Then there is the Child who, by contrast, is neither lucky nor unlucky. She makes so little impression that she seems not even to merit a name. At school, their fellow students, whether lucky or luckless or unlucky, seem consumed by a murderous rage. Adults are nearly invisible and the society the children create on their own is marked by cruelty and soul-crushing hierarchies. Then, one day, the Child sneaks into the classroom after hours and adds ominous sentences to her classmates’ notebooks. This sinister act unlocks a series of events that end in horrible violence.

In this dreamy, hypnotic and deeply unsettling novel, Han casts an uncanny glow over the innocence of childhood and the ethics of art-making. Brilliantly rendered in Janet Hong’s translation, Han’s prose makes us question where life ends and the book begins.

Review

'The Impossible Fairy Tale is inventive'.—The Indian Express

Review

‘Grappling with topics such as childhood, bullying, and what it means to tell a story, The Impossible Fairy Tale is an impressively unique and challenging read that is well worth your while.’—Buzz Feed
‘Han Yujoo casts an uncanny cloak of dreams over a South Korean childhood. Janet Hong, the translator, proves adept with both the skin-prickling horror of the novel’s first half, and the second half’s dark night of the literary soul.’—The Economist.