The Guest by Hwang Sok-yong (2001) is a novel set partly in the Jeolla province, exploring the Korean War's devastation in the southwest of the country. It uses the structure of a traditional shamanic ritual to recount a massacre from both sides, and is as good an introduction to Korean historical trauma as any book written in the language.
Please Look After Mom by Shin Kyung-sook (2008), though set partly in Seoul, deals with the experience of the rural Korean family — the kind of family that has existed in Jeolla province for centuries. It became the first Korean novel to win the Man Asian Literary Prize and remains the best entry point into contemporary Korean literary fiction for Western readers.
Korea's Place in the Sun by Bruce Cumings (1997) is the essential English-language history of Korea. The Jeolla region gets sustained attention as the historically marginalised "other" to Seoul-centred Korean narratives — Cumings explains the regional dynamics that shaped modern Korean politics.