A wave of condolences and tributes continues to pour in following the death of Baek Se-hee, the bestselling author whose resonant memoir "I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki" gave voice to the everyday struggles of mental health. She was 35.
Her death on Thursday was confirmed the next day by the Korea Organ Donation Agency. Though the agency did not disclose the cause, it noted that Baek gave life to five others through organ donation.
Published in 2018, "I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki" struck a deep chord in Korea for its candid conversations about mental health -- still a taboo subject for many in the country. Through intimate dialogues with her therapist, Baek chronicled her battle with dysthymia, a chronic form of depression, as well as her pursuit to find meaning in the small, ordinary joys that coexist with sorrow.
Her words of vulnerability transcended borders. The book has since been translated in 25 countries and sold over a million copies worldwide. Its sequel, "I Want to Die but I Still Want to Eat Tteokbokki," delved even deeper into the writer's struggles with suicidal thoughts.
"I remember thinking, 'What a well-crafted title,' and reading this book through to the end. It gave me hope that perceptions of psychiatry in Korea were starting to change," said Peter Jongho Na, assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, on social media. "They say a person's legacy is made of all the lives they've touched, changed and helped ... My heart aches knowing that someone who reached so many, like Baek, is no longer with us."
Anton Hur, the International Booker Prize-nominated translator who rendered both of Baek's memoirs into English, wrote: "Se-hee saved five lives through her donation of her heart, lungs, liver and both kidneys. But her readers will know she touched yet millions of lives more with her writing."
"To read her books is to want to talk about them. She sought connection, always, and wanted her words to be of help and consolation. She achieved this and so much more," said Baek's editor at Bloomsbury, the U.K. publishing house that brought her works to the English-speaking world.
Baek's "A Will from Barcelona," published this June, stands as both her first work of fiction and her final book. The novel follows Sam Lee, a 35-year-old writer whose debut work becomes a million-seller, and Paola, the translator of its Spanish edition. As their paths converge, Lee has to confront her feelings of inferiority and admiration toward Paola -- emotions she must ultimately reconcile in her quest for self-acceptance.
Though a fictitious character, Lee's emotions closely mirror Baek's own.
"I wanted to accept who I was, but also break free. That's why I simply changed the character's name from my own," the author said in an interview with her publisher, Wisdom House. "By doing that, I could take one small step away, as if to say, 'I'm writing this story, but this doesn't represent all of me.'"