‘Gu’s unfaltering focus and masterful writing conjure up a persuasive, transformative narrative of a woman who had to live like an emotionless machine and eventually comes to acknowledge the very human and universal emotion deep within herself . . . Gu’s mastery of storytelling shines’
Kiho Ilbo        

‘Gu says that the distance between imagination and daydreaming is but a millimetre. She’s the writer who beats down the boundary between reality and imagination . . . Her writing is so evocative and haunting, even after I finished the book . . . I had to revisit The Old Woman With the Knife four times in three months’
Civic News        

‘This novel breaks out of the box of what constitutes "a mystery thriller with a killer as the heroine" and into a much broader literary territory. The Old Woman With the Knife is a cruel yet beautiful study on what is the fate of being, on bruising and disintegrating life, and on all the inevitable truths of human life’
Chunji Ilbo        

‘There has never been a Korean novel with such a groundbreaking heroine’
Segye Ilbo        

‘The sixty-something female killer Hornclaw, who’s been making a living as a professional killer, might come off as an ordinary woman at first sight, but is an intimidating person with quite the muscle and ammunition. I couldn’t hope for a better heroine – a truly powerful character with an ageing human body’
Book DB