The Wizard’s Bakery by Gu Byeong-mo

The award-winning, fantastical Korean bestseller, a unique tale where magic comes at a price.

‘Don’t we all need a little magic in our lives sometimes?’

Open twenty-four hours a day in a quiet Seoul neighbourhood, The Wizard’s Bakery seems like any other where you can buy bread, cakes, and pastries, with a somewhat grumpy man behind the counter.

For a desperate runaway teen, it’s a refuge from a fractured home – until he discovers the pastries hold magic: madeleines to fix broken hearts, almond bars to unearth memories buried deep within, and cinnamon cookies for your worst enemies.

But each of these items comes with a warning: the power contained in the treats inevitably alters the order of the world and sometimes produces dramatic consequences for those who consume them, consequences that need to be weighed carefully.

Under the stern eye of the bakery’s gruff wizard and his mysterious blue-haired assistant, the boy learns about the responsibility that comes with working at this bakery where every bite comes with a price.

The award-winning, magical Korean bestseller from the author of YOUR NEIGHBOUR’S TABLE and THE OLD WOMAN AND THE KNIFE, about a boy who runs away from home and seeks refuge in a magical bakery.

About the Author: Gu Byeong-mo was born in 1976 in Seoul. She studied Korean language and literature at Kyung Hee University, and worked as an editor. She made her literary debut with the novel Wizard Bakery (2009), which won the Changbi Prize. It became bestseller in Korea and was translated into many different languages. Her short story collection Hoping That It Wasn’t Only Me (2015) received Writer of the Year Award and Hwang Sun-won Literary Award for New Writers.

10 Jun 2025

The Wizard’s Bakery: A magical coming-of-age story like no other – for fans of Korean translated fiction by Gu Byeong-mo ISBN 9781035428045