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Sarawak State Library

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The Healing Season of Pottery

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Call no.
: 895.735/YON
Author
: Yeon Somin
Contributor
: Rozana Octovia Anak Raymond Umpu
Summary
The Healing Season of Pottery is a tender, slow-blooming Korean novel about burnout, rediscovery, and the quiet magic of working with one’s hands. Jungmin, a once-driven TV writer, finds herself emptied out by the fast, competitive life she’s been living. Her escape to a small pottery studio — complete with a sunlit room, the earthy scent of clay, and a resident cat — becomes the turning point she didn’t know she needed. As she learns to shape cups and bowls, her own life begins to take shape again. The narrative moves at a deliberately gentle pace, mirroring the seasons and the slow process of healing. Yeon Somin’s prose (beautifully translated by Clare Richards) excels at sensory detail: the cool weight of clay in the hands, the warmth of sunlight on a worktable, the rhythmic hum of the pottery wheel. The result is almost meditative. This is not a plot-heavy novel — the drama is internal — but it’s deeply rewarding for readers willing to slow down. Best for readers seeking comfort fiction, those who enjoyed Before the Coffee Gets Cold or Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop, and anyone who believes that sometimes the smallest acts — shaping clay, brewing tea, watching the seasons change — can be the most healing. A restorative, beautifully tactile story that lingers like the memory of warm pottery in your hands.