Michelle Zauner is turning the page on her next chapter, quite literally.
The Japanese Breakfast frontwoman announced on Thursday (Sept. 17) that she will release her second memoir, Thank You for Your Suffering, on April 27, 2027, via Knopf. The book follows Zauner during a year she spent living in Seoul, South Korea, where she set out to learn Korean, reconnect with her late mother’s family and better understand a part of her heritage she had long felt disconnected from.
The title comes from a Korean expression Zauner encountered while getting her hair done. “Gosaeng haesseoyo” is a polite way of recognizing someone’s effort, though its literal translation is closer to “You suffered.” The phrase stuck with Zauner and eventually became the title of the memoir.
The book picks up on themes that readers first encountered in Zauner’s bestselling 2021 memoir, Crying in H Mart. While that book talked mostly about growing up as a Korean American woman processing the death of her mother, Thank You for Your Suffering turns toward what happened when Zauner decided to pursue a deeper connection to her mother’s culture through language.
That pursuit was anything but easy.
Zauner, who was born in Korea and raised in Eugene, Oregon, spent much of her childhood visiting the country during summers. But in 2024, she moved to Seoul for an entire year with her husband and Japanese Breakfast bandmate Peter Bradley, making it the longest stretch she had ever spent there. She enrolled in language school, kept a daily journal in both Korean and English and documented the highs and lows of starting over somewhere unfamiliar.
There was also a compelling reason to master the language. Before leaving Seoul, Zauner discovered a handwritten diary belonging to her mother among her parents’ belongings. However, it was written entirely in Korean. “I was really curious: If I did spend a year there, how much could I learn?” Zauner told ELLE.
During her time in Seoul, Zauner also grew closer to her mother’s family. More specifically, she grew closest to her aunt, who gave her a much less polished portrait of Zauner’s mother than the one she had carried in her own mind. She explored the city’s music scene, made new friends and even performed songs in Korean.
Zauner has described the new memoir as a wholly different writing experience from Crying in H Mart. Instead of revisiting the raw grief that helped construct her first book, Thank You for Your Suffering let her write about a period filled with self-growth.
The memoir comes at an interesting time for Zauner, considering she is also preparing to become a mother herself. Reflecting on her relationship with her late mother, Zauner said she feels confident about entering motherhood and credits the way she was raised with giving her that assurance.
“I just know that I’m going to do a good job because I feel like I was mothered very beautifully,” she told ELLE.
Thank You For Your Suffering is available to preorder now ahead of its 2027 release.
Meanwhile, Zauner is continuing to make music as part of Japanese Breakfast. Their latest album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), arrived in 2025, following the Grammy-nominated Jubilee, both of which earned spots on the Billboard 200 upon their release.
