I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki

I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is a memoir by South Korean writer Baek Sehee, translated into English by Anton Hur. While working as a social media director at a publishing house, Baek began seeing a psychiatrist for dysthymia, a persistent low-grade depression she had carried for years while appearing composed and successful at work. The book takes its title from an early session: even at her lowest, she could still summon an appetite for tteokbokki, the spicy Korean rice cake dish — a small, stubborn tether to ordinary life.

The memoir is built from twelve weeks of transcribed conversations with her psychiatrist, each followed by Baek's own reflective essays on the patterns she recognizes in herself, including black-and-white thinking, self-judgment, and the exhaustion of performing wellness. Baek originally self-published the book in Korea in 2018 after crowdfunding it through Tumblbug; a small publisher, Heun, later picked it up for wider release, and Anton Hur's English translation reached readers through Bloomsbury in 2022.

The book went on to sell more than a million copies across 25 countries, with BTS's RM among its high-profile readers helping carry it to international attention. Its candid, unresolved account of living with chronic depression while still building a career and relationships struck a chord widely enough that Baek wrote a sequel in 2019, translated into English in 2024.