Interesting article on Lee Oisoo and HOW he stays popular

Novelist Lee Oi-soo By Oh Sang-min

An interesting article in the JoongAng Daily along with an interview of Lee Oisoo – this is particularly interesting in that it addresses Lee’s love/hate relationship with social media.

Lee is yet un-translated, as far as I know. In my Graduate Class, “Created in Translation” I am having my students translate a passage of his that The Translator has previously had a go at here at KTLIT.

In any case, the article points out something I did know, that Lee Oisoo is a pretty polarizing writer (I’ve heard wildly different assessments from other professors and some of my students). But it also has some interesting background on him, including his chidlhood poverty and puniness, and his battles with alcohol and web based lynch mobs (siiiiiiiiigh! those silly netizens).

The other cool thing the article says is that Hwacheon is building him a village!

Here is a taste of Oisoo from the JoongAng Daily, discussing his use of social media (among other things):

With over 30 books to his name, Lee has considerable clout in the literary world and throughout the realm of pop culture. And a major reason for his popularity probably has something to do with his decade-long effort to communicate with his readers online.

Lee has the highest number of Twitter followers among Korean celebrities with 427,799, far higher than figure skating gold-medalist Kim Yu-na.

“Many people believe there is distance between writers and them, but I just don’t like it,” Lee said. On the day of the interview, four elementary school girls visited Lee with gifts of drawings, handmade mugs and a cactus.