In her third year of middle school, she read Yi Sang’s 1936 short story “Nalgae” (날개 Wings)[3] during Korean language class and became interested in novels.
[6] However, huildam literature was a short-lived trend and Kim made her debut in 2000 with the short story “Tto dareun gyejeol” (또 다른 계절 Yet Another Season) which dealt with her personal experience of her father's death at a young age.
In her 2018 novel Sagwapai nanuneun sigan (사과파이 나누는 시간 Apple Pie-Sharing Time), she explores contemporary domestic Korean issues such as youth unemployment, temporary contract employees, and state violence.
[9] In 2018, she became a representative for the Bara Arts and Cultural Education Research Center and is currently a member of the board of directors for the Jeju Migrant Peace Community.
“I” (Akaseu) symbolizes his father as an elephant—the animal that props up the universe in Hinduist mythology—but this also functions as a larger metaphor in which migrant workers, like the elephant in the myth, sustain and support Korean society.
The use of mythic symbolism as a metaphor in representing important values that must be safeguarded within reality is one of Kim's distinctive writing methods that shape her novels.
Her personal experience living as a foreigner in the United States made her realize that it is not only Korea, but all international major cities that face issues related to multiculturalism.
[15] In stories such as “Aengcho” (앵초 Primrose), where the protagonist cannot even collect her dead husband's body after the September 11 Attacks on the World Trade Center, and the titular “Pokshik,” where even though Team Leader Min is diagnosed with a rare disease from overwork, he cannot give up his job at a large multinational corporation, Kim juxtaposes the richness and abundance of cities with the wretched lives within them.
[16] After the publication of Pokshik, Kim no longer represented diasporic narratives in her works because she stated that she wanted the next generation of writers, who grew up in multicultural families themselves, to portray them in their own voices.
In particular, the cosmic imagination in the titular story “Sagwapai nanuneun sigan” romantically renders an optimistic energy in order to overcome the difficulties of reality with its self-reflection and introspection towards life.