Haemin Sunim is a graduate of Harvard and Princeton, has over a million followers on Twitter and has an internationally bestselling book to his credit. Published by Penguin Books in 2017, The things you can only see when you slow down was published in 30 countries and sold three million copies in South Korea alone. Having a personal fascination with masters of enlightenment in any religion, I was excited to meet Haemin, and he was not disappointed. But I immediately realized that what sets him apart from the cacophony of self-help gurus and explains his popularity is not only his message, but also his accessibility.
We met to talk about his new book, Love of imperfect things: how to accept yourself in a world in search of perfection. Haemin is a fan of the quiet mind: “When you suspend the chattering mind, you can enjoy happiness,” he tells me. He adds: “We can’t see the present moment, only the past, so we come into situations with preconceived ideas that prevent us from feeling love.”
Haemin came to the United States to study, first at Berkeley, and after earning his Ivy League degrees, he worked as a teacher for seven years. “I didn’t have the courage to pursue my heart,” he says, but in 2011, while on a scholarship at Seoul National University, he realized he “had to connect with people to be able to serve.” He started meditation meetings that included time to listen to himself not only about daily stress but also about joy (while drinking tea). What started with a group of 60 people grew to 500. This success encouraged him to create his Broken Heart School in Seoul, where people can come to heal from all kinds of broken hearts: bad relationships, illness, problems family, work problems. The school now uses social workers and therapists, but the original principle was simply to be heard: to speak and have another person listen with compassion.
In Love for imperfect things, Haemin says the message he introduced in his first book is deeper: “I am more mature,” he says. The first chapter is “Taking Care of Yourself” and its advice is to be good to yourself first. “I just worried about what other people thought of me,” he says. “I never really thought about taking care of myself or loving myself.”
Haemin’s editor at Penguin, John Siciliano, recently promoted to editor-in-chief of Penguin Books (with whom I shared a broken heart), was reading the magazine. Current Korean literature, when the title of Haemin’s first book caught his attention. Agnes Krup, director of scouting at Sanford J. Greenburger, put him in touch with a contact in South Korea who put him in touch with Haemin. “I spoke to him on the phone and he was very interesting,” says Siciliano. “He has a foot in both cultures, studied in the United States, speaks perfect English, is present on social networks and has a universal message. He was a media star monk!
Siciliano purchased the world rights to the first book based on a few pages and loved the finished book when it arrived. He is even more excited about Love for imperfect things. “There’s been a boom in self-help and self-care titles,” he says. “This seems to be a category that has caught fire since the election.” For Love, Siciliano bought the world rights again. It didn’t cost him much, he says, because in South Korea the emphasis is on royalties.
To date, the title has sold in a dozen territories. Haemin translated the book with Deborah Smith (the translator of The vegetarian by Han Kang). Siciliano found the artist for the American edition of Love, Lisk Feng, and selected the illustrations. “This book embodies the self-care movement,” he says. “Our culture is so polarized, with pettiness on social media. This book is a sanctuary. The eight chapters of Love cover everything from “Family” to “Courage” to “Acceptance.”
Penguin publishes Love at the end of December 2018. Siciliano hopes to use the new year as an opportunity for change. Haemin will come to the United States to promote. “There is an interest in ‘wisdom from the East,’” Siciliano says. “It’s a culture of order where ours is chaotic.”
“The advice in Love for imperfect things is to help people cope with failure and despair,” says Haemin. He tells me that the last page is a poem: “I could give it to you now,” he said, “but then you wouldn’t have the pleasure of reading it yourself.” »
A version of this article appeared in the 09/07/2018 issue of Publishers Weekly under the title: The media star monk
