A bit older news, but an interview with the Fultons on their translation of Kim Tae-yong’s Pig on Grass. The story begins with one of my all-time favorite first lines in Korean literature, “She kicked the pig in the balls and her purple sandal flew off.” Which, I think, gets you in the mood to read…
The Language Translation Institute of Korea and The British Council in Seoul did a brilliant job of selecting authors for the 2014 London Book Fair (at which Korea was the market focus). The British Council used this opportunity to interview all of the authors, and while these interviews may be found individually through their “news”…
Earlier this week KTLIT was contacted by Julia who described herself as: currently an assistant editor for Asymptote a spunky journal bringing together the best in contemporary literature (and not to mention nominated by 3:am for “Best Magazine of the Year”). Her news was that this month Asymptote includes three pieces of translated poetry from…
First, a review from the Gwangju Blog of Ko Un and his novel Hwaom-kyong (화엄경). The review discusses the historical background of the work, Ko Un’s history, the work’s style, and pretty much everything else except judging the piece critically. The book appears to only be in Korean, so use this review as a way…
Last year, in the course of working on an article on Kim Hyesoon for Yonhap, I was privileged enough to interview poet Kim Hyesoon (about whom you can find more information on Wikipedia, in a page KTLIT put up^^) via email. Special thanks to Joanne Yoon for doing the translation of the questions and KTLIT’s…
Once again, for those who prefer the scratchy spoken word to the written. This is the audio file of Tuesday’s 1013 Main Street on TBS eFM on which I discussed the poetry of Ko Un and how he is like (and unlike) Kim Hyesoon and how their poetics differ, although occasionally focusing on similar meta-themes.…
A podcast of my segment on 1013 Mainstreet on TBS eFM. This is quite similar to last Tuesday’s post, but as usual, I include it for anyone who would rather listen than read, or whoever wants to hear what I sound like (screechy and mouthing platitudes^^). https://www.ktlit.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/1205120417_charles.mp3
As most readers know, each Tuesday morning I go on TBS eFM at 10:12 (or so) to discuss Korean literature on 1013 Mainstreet. Today I talked about poet Kim Hye-soon, and the following is a pre-transcript of that conversation, with the links I mentioned on-air, down at the bottom of this post (so scroll straight…
I don’t normally “do” poets, but the Asia Literary Review is publishing an All-Korean volume next month, and Kim Hyesoon is likely to be published in it. In expectation of that happening, I thought it would be useful to have something up on the Wikipedia. It is here,and it looks a little like this (obviously,…