WAR AND SEPARATION (As usual, I welcome disagreements and corrections^^) Previously: I) Hyangga and Koryeo Kasa II) Sijo & Kasa III) Classical Fiction IV) Pansori V) Introduction to Modern Literature VI: Enlightenment VII: Background to Colonial Lit VIII: The History of Korean Modern Literature VIII: Themes & Approaches to Fiction VIIII: The Colonial Era Several…
Krys Lee, author of the awesome short story collection Drifting House, and occasional friend of this blog, has been shortlisted for the BBC international short story award. The Guardian covers that in an article that is pretty oddly formatted. About Lee’s story, The Guardian is remarkably reticent: Krys Lee, born in Seoul, is in the…
The estimable What the Book in Itaewon invited author Krys Lee (who wrote the epic and sometimes harrowing Drifting House) to give a reading and it was standing room only in the space between the counter and the racks of books. It was so crowded that author Lee read standing up, surrendering her chair to…
“It’s wrong how we pretend we keep going forward.” Krys Lees’ Drifting House is the work of an accomplished author who looks, with unsparing eye, at some of the costs of living in the interstitial spaces between countries and cultures. In some ways reminiscent of Ch’oe Yun or Cho Se-hui, Lee is a master of…
With Krys Lee soon to return to Seoul to face a potential ‘sea of fire‘ we thought we’d share three video clips of Krys and agent Susan Golomb speaking at the The Center for Fiction on Feb 6, of this year. This is over 45 minutes of clips, so settle down with a good cup…
Part One of this series is here and now that she has published her piece the ‘famous author’ I mentioned there was Krys Lee. If there is one thing the West does know about Korea, it is North Korea. From cliché bad-guy leadership to some kind of nuclear threat, North Korea pops up regularly on…
A bit more good news on the awards front as Krys Lee’s Drifting House has been long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Story Award. Launched in 2005, the award is presented each year to an original collection of stories judged to be the most accomplished. The award’s aim is to reward an individual author’s commitment…
All the good news about Shin Kyung-sook has temporarily overshadowed the other great recent news in Korean fiction, Krys Lee’s incredibly moving and sometimes depressing^^ Drifting House. So, with an eye towards getting back on a more general track, here is a 13 minute Vimeo in which Lee reads the last scene from The Pastor’s…
On Facebook, that most academic of sites, in a discussion with a famous author about North Korean diasporic fiction. Famous author asks the question what North Korean diasporic literature am I aware of? My answer and the conversation is quite brief as I wrack my brains to try to come up with examples of it.…
An interesting article from the Wall Street Journal titled, Another Korea Wave: New Books in U.S.. The article title invokes hallyu, but in fact the article says: But Korea is getting quite a bit of attention in the U.S. in a different medium – books. Three important and substantively different books about the Korean peninsula…