His short story collection Kwireubal namjagui seong (퀴르발 남작의 성 The Castle of Baron Curval) is replete with film and pop culture references like crime fiction by Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie as well as subculture elements like the vampire, Frankenstein's monster, and cannibalism.
Citing The Catcher in the Rye as his favorite book, Choi said in an interview that it is what piqued his interest in the novel and he has read all existing translations of the work into Korean.
Kwireubal namjagui seong (The Castle of Baron Curval), in particular, was featured in the South Korean TV show The Secret Readers Club,[2] suggesting its popular appeal and literary value.
He made his literary debut in 2007 when his short story “Kwireubal namjagui seong” (퀴르발 남작의 성 The Castle of Baron Curval), inspired by the character President Curval in Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom,[3] won the New Writer’s Award from Literature and Society.
As a high school student, Choi was unsure of his career aspirations and chose to study business in university over the liberal arts for practical reasons.
It looks like those genes have finally passed onto someone, after thirty-four generations!”[4] After completing his military service, Choi returned to school and sat in on Korean literature and psychology classes, training to be a writer on his own.
When he felt he needed to study creative writing in earnest for two or so years, he enrolled in the Seoul Institute of the Arts.
[5] Literary critic Lee Gyeong-jae likens Choi Jae-hoon's novels to a maze in which texts mirror one another and the author and reader face each other through the act of reading: “Choi Jae-hoon uses pop-culture tropes and humanities material to create narratives that effectively show ‘there is nothing outside the text.’ Moreover, each of his works are underpinned by such compelling logic and intelligence that they have an almost scientific precision.
But as was mentioned earlier, if reality, desire, history, or other contextual issues are fundamentally linked to language, then they are also texts in themselves.
This is why in Choi Jae-hoon’s fictional worlds, there are no paths leading readers outside the text.”[6] Another literary critic Nam Jin-wu compares Choi's maze-like narratives to M. C. Escher’s prints: “At first glance, his novels seem like sturdy structures built on solid ground, but once inside you realize they are surrealistic mazes comprising countless rooms, corridors, doors, and staircases.
When you pass through this world, which the writer has constructed with precise control, you experience time and space in a way that defies the laws of nature or causality.
“Narratives of Dead Ends: Novels by Cho Ha-hyeong and Choi Jae-hoon.” Literature and Society, Spring 2009 Issue.
I Swear I Saw the Monster...’ Interview with Choi Jae-hoon, Author of The Castle of Baron Curval.” Channel Yes http://ch.yes24.com/Article/View/16782 8.