Author/illustrator Samir Dahmani’s highly-anticipated graphic novel, Seoul Before Sunrise, will hit shelves next week. Before it does, The Beat can reveal an exclusive preview of the book, giving you just a taste of the surreal, watercolor world Dahmani has created for his characters.
Seoul Before Sunrise follows Seong-Ji, who moves to Seoul for university with her long-time friend Ji-won. They swear they’ll stay close once they’re in the city, but that isn’t how things shake out. Seong-Ji has to split her precious time between her overnight job at a grocery store and an intense accounting program, leaving her to not just grieve for the apparent loss of her friendship with Ji-won, but lonely and more than a little bit lost.
Then she encounters a peculiar stranger: a young woman who sneaks into the empty homes of other people to paint and photograph their interiors every night. Seong-Ji gets swept into this strange, dream-like world that’s so unlike her own and learns a lot more than she bargains for.
Check out a new preview from Seoul Before Sunrise below.
Seoul Before Sunrise is Dahmani’s first English graphic novel in English. He previously released Je suis encore là-bas (I’m Still There) with his wife Yun-bo, about French and Korean expatriation, and a graphic novel adaptation of Romain Puértolas‘s L’Extraordinaire voyage du fakir qui était resté coincé dans une armoire Ikea (The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Stuck in an Ikea Wardrobe).
Seoul Before Sunrise will be available everywhere books are sold on May 21.
