Kim Hoon (“Powder to Powder”) speaks at LTI Korea

Kim Hun at LTI KoreaKim Hoon lectured tonight at LTI Korea, on the complications of Korean language and how to become a better writer. The first part I picked up as he repeatedly said versions of “어려운” in Korean.^^ The second bit was passed along to me by LTI Korea webmaster and all around SNS wizard Park Chanwoo. Hoon kept the crowd entertained with occasional jokes and things written in Hangul that was so difficult to decipher that he might has well have been a professor.^^ His second point, which I thought was ambitious, was based on the fact that knowing at least some Chinese (hanja) is often a requirement for good writing in Korean, as hanja was the first literary language of Korea and often underlies existing Korean words. Hoon went further, and suggested aspiring writers learn several other languages.

While Hoon was lecturing, fabled translators Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton snuck into the back of the room, and listened attentively.

Readers interested in Hoon can only find him in one place, and that is “Land of Exile”, which by no coincidence is translated and edited largely by the Fultons. Hoon’s story in that collection (which is Fultons at LTIawesome, see review here) is From Powder to Powder which, as the Korean short story “Cremation” (화장) earned the Yi Sang Literature Prize.

 

Also…
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Kim Hoon & Charles Montgomery