South Korean author Baek Se-hee, known for her best-selling memoir I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki, has died, according to the Korea Organ and Tissue Donation Agency. She was 35.
The Korea Organ and Tissue Donation Agency announced her death Friday in a statement, calling the author “a star in the sky” for saving five lives through donating her heart, lungs, liver and both kidneys at the National Health Insurance Service Ilsan Hospital.
The cause and date of death were not made public.
“We are deeply grateful for the warm-hearted love shown by donor Baek Se-hee and her family in practicing the gift of life,” Lee Sam-yeol, director of the Korea Organ and Tissue Donation Agency, said in the statement.
“The love Baek shared at the end of her life — after offering comfort and hope through her heartfelt writing — has become a miracle that gives life to others.”
Born in 1990 as the second of three daughters in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, Baek studied creative writing at university and worked at a publishing company for five years.
It was during this time that she was diagnosed with dysthymia, a mild but persistent form of depression, and sought therapy — the content of which became her best-selling I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki, published in 2018.
She followed up that success with I want to Die but I Still Want to eat Tteokbokki the next year. Both have been translated into English, and published by Bloomsbury.
She also collaborated with other authors, creating No One Will Ever Love You as Much as I Do in 2021 and I Want to Write, I don’t Want to Write in 2022.
“My sister, whom I loved most, wanted to write, to connect with hearts through writing and to nurture dreams and hopes,” Baek’s younger sister, Baek Da-hee, said in a statement.
“Knowing her kind heart that loved so much and could not hate anyone, I hope she can now rest peacefully in heaven. I love you so much.”
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Diane KeatonHonoree Diane Keaton arrives for American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award tribute gala at the Dolby Theatre in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles on June 8, 2017. The screen legend died on October 11 at age 79. Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo
