Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast has shared details of her upcoming new book. Find all the info below.
The singer-songwriter is due to publish Thank You for Your Suffering on April 27 via Knopf. Pre-order here.
Comprising 224 pages, the memoir will explore Zauner’s year spent living in South Korea, “learning Korean in an impossibly challenging language school and forging extraordinary new relationships” with her late mother’s family.
According to the official description, the book will take fans on an “immersive and deeply personal journey through the heart of South Korea”. It charts “Zauner’s dream of learning her mother’s native language in hopes of being able to read the diary she left behind, and to connect with her family in Seoul”.
“From the beginning, her adventure is beset by difficulties, from the quirky apartment she rents with Peter, her husband and bandmate, to the punishing language school that leaves her in tears,” the listing adds.
“Korean does not come easily to her, even as she fights stubbornly to master it, and the difficulty of living in a foreign city places unexpected new pressures on her marriage. But there are also profound new pleasures and triumphs during her year abroad: making Korean friends, exploring Seoul’s alternative underground, spending precious time with her mother’s sister, performing songs in a new language.”
It concludes: “Zauner’s voice is fierce and emotional, her prose more precise and assured than ever, and her honesty is mesmerising, as she shares her failures and her victories with unwavering candour.”
During a new interview with ELLE, Zauner explained: “So much of the book is about working really hard. I was just so hungry and scared of not doing a good job. I think part of that was this strange psychological feeling after my mom died, of wanting to be this perfect daughter that I wish I could have been when she was alive.”
She continued: “It felt like I spent all this time learning about Korean food and writing about that, and it just wasn’t enough. It made me suddenly really want to go further in connecting to that part of my mom’s history and who she was as a person, and so I really regretted not learning the language, and I felt quite embarrassed about it. I was really curious: If I did spend a year there, how much could I learn?”
Thank You for Your Suffering will follow Zauner’s 2021 memoir Crying In H Mart, which went on to become a New York Times best-seller. She wrote a screenplay for a film adaptation of her first book, but the project was put “on pause” for the foreseeable future last year.
The movie was set to be directed by The White Lotus star Will Sharpe, and was going to detail Zauner’s experience growing up as a Korean-American and reckoning with her identity following her mother’s death.
Japanese Breakfast released their fourth and latest studio album, ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women)’, in March 2025. In a glowing five-star review, NME said the record “sounds like living inside a classical piece of art, every detail an elaborate brushstroke”.
Zauner spoke to NME around that time about the inspiration behind the LP’s title, as well as what it was like to grow her fanbase over the years.
“One of the things that’s kind of tough about becoming a bigger artist is that the shows are bigger and you have less time to do these personal things for the people that really care about you as a band and love your music,” she said.
“I used to sell my own merch, I used to write handwritten letters to everyone and mail out cassette tapes, and I felt really comfortable with that relationship. Now that I don’t have time to do those kinds of personal, intimate things, it’s a little bit heartbreaking. I feel less deserving of that attention in some way, because I’m not able to make those kinds of connections the way that I used to.”
Over the summer, Michelle Zauner revealed that she was pregnant during her set at Governor’s Ball 2026 in New York.
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