I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki: Conversations with My Psychiatrist

The internationally bestselling therapy memoir translated by International Booker Prize shortlisted Anton Hur.

PSYCHIATRIST: So how can I help you?

ME: I don’t know, I’m—what’s the word—depressed? Do I have to go into detail?

Baek Sehee is a successful young social media director at a publishing house when she begins seeing a psychiatrist about her—what to call it?—depression? She feels persistently low, anxious, endlessly self-doubting, but also highly judgmental of others. She hides her feelings well at work, but the effort is exhausting, overwhelming, and keeps her from forming deep relationships. This can’t be normal. But if she’s so hopeless, why can she always summon a desire for her favorite street food: the hot, spicy rice cake, tteokbokki? Is this just what life is like?

Recording her dialogues with her psychiatrist over a twelve-week period, and expanding on each session with her own reflective micro-essays, Baek begins to disentangle the harmful behaviors that keep her locked in a cycle of self-abuse. Part memoir, part self-help book, I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is a book to keep close and to reach for in times of darkness.

About the Author

Baek Sehee studied creative writing in college before working for five years in publishing. For ten years, she received psychiatric treatment for dysthymia, which became the subject of her essays, and then her debut I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki. Her favorite food is tteokbokki, and she lives with her rescue dog, Jaram.

Anton Hur was born in Stockholm, Sweden. His translations include Bora Chung’s Cursed Bunny, which was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.