Found on the Web #7

Young authors leading a Science Fiction charge:

Science fiction (sci-fi) and fantasy novels have had a weak foothold on the Korean literature scene, but recently they have been widening their reach thanks to a slew of rising young authors dedicated to the genres.

Why book reviews matter. Not just because I write them. Plus, the article comes with a super-cute picture of a kitten reading a book, if you’re into that kind of thing:

We’ve all done it — bought a book based on a good review, passed over another because of a bad review. But why do reviews affect us? And how do they do it?

A thing that might interest James over at The Grand Narrative: A review of  Writing Women in Korea: Translation and Feminism in the Colonial Period, by Theresa Hyun

In order to pursue the question of translation and feminism, Hyun focuses on three bodies of material which enable her to consider the relationship between gender and writing in the colonial period. First, she looks at the ways that translators and writers (of both sexes) wrote about women, … Secondly, in what is by far the most original part of the book, she looks at the work of women translators in the 1920s and 1930s. Finally, she takes a closer look at three specific writers–Pak Hwasông, Mo Yunsuk, and Kim Myôngsun–in order to consider fictional writing by women in the 1920s and 1930s, with specific reference to its relationship to translations of Western forms of writing.