Updates on the publication of LTI Korea/Dalkey Archives

The Korea Herald and other outlets are reporting on the final release date for the LTI Korea/Dalkey Archives collection the “Library of Korean Literature.”

The Herald says:

The first 10 volumes of Dalkey Archive Press and the Literature Translation Institute of Korea’s Korean literature series will be hitting U.S. bookstores on Nov. 16, the Korea-based translation institute announced Tuesday.

And this is great news for fans of Korean literature. KTLIT has read five of these books, and four of them are ‘out of the park’ type hits. You can read the reviews of the four great ones here:

Park Wan-suh’s “Lonesome You”
Kim Won-il’s “House With a Sunken Courtyard”
Kim Joo-Young’s “Stingray”
Review of Lee Ki-ho’s “At Least We Can Apologize.”

The Herald article covers all 10 books that will be published:

The 10 volumes to be published next month include Yi Kwang-su’s 1932 fiction “The Soil,” which tells the story of a lawyer and an idealist who dedicates his life to helping the residents of a rural community during Korea’s Japanese colonial period.

Also included is Park Wan-suh’s collection of short stories “Lonesome You.” Its title story, “Lonesome You,” is about an aging woman who has been separated from her husband for a number of years.

Park debuted as a novelist in 1970 with “Namok (Bare Tree)” at age 40. She wrote extensively about the lives of ordinary families in the aftermath of the Korean War (1950-1953), as well as the lives of women entangled in social changes and rapid industrialization from the ’60s to the ’90s.

One of the volumes of the series is author Jung Mi-kyung’s “My Son’s Girlfriend,” a tale of a modern, affluent mother whose son dates a girl from a poor family. The novel is said to be an insightful observation of the class divisions in a modern, capitalist Korea.

Author Jang Eun-jin’s “No One Writes Back,” on the other hand, is a tale of a young man who travels around aimlessly for about three years with his blind dog. Jang, born in 1976, is one of the youngest writers whose work is included in the series.

Other inclusions in the 10 volumes are: Kim Won-il’s “The House with a Sunken Courtyard”; Hyun Ki-young’s “One Spoon on this Earth,”; Kim Joo-young’s “Stingray”; Jung Young-moon’s “A Most Ambiguous Sunday and Other Stories”; Jang Jung-il’s “When Adam Opens His Eyes”; and Lee Ki-ho’s “At Least We Can Apologize.”

In addition, over at the Gypsy Scholar (who with his wife translated two of these books: “When Adam Opens His Eyes” and “The Soil) there is a bit more discussion:

Here on both books translated, and also talks a little bit about Yi Kwangsu’s Soil:

The novel opens in a slow, somewhat understated manner and gradually builds in intensity towards tragedy that wants to resolve itself in a happy ending of Dickensian proportions . .

LOL, that “wants to” makes me doubt that a happy ending is in sight, but check back here soon for a review.