I met with noted author Shin Kyung-sook, writer of the tremendously successful Please Look After Mom (엄마를 부탁해), at the cafe at the Kim Jong-yeong Museum (thoroughly beautiful, by the way), located in Pyeongchang-dong, Jongno-gu. I was with Dylan Goldsby a photographer who was taking pictures for an upcoming segment on Ms. Shin in 10…
A few things of some interest, but not worthy of entire posts. • First, HanCinema (in a designation that is amusing to me) labels Shin Kyung-sook “the future of Korean literature.” It is just possible that there is a more nuanced take on this^^ but nuanced takes aren’t really what this article does: [Interview :…
The other day I caught the 401 bus, just to see where it ran. After a bit, it went by the COEX in Gangnam, which contains a reasonably sized Bandi & Luni. So I hopped off. After a cup of coffee in a Caffe Bene, I went down to Bandi & Luni look for some…
Shin Kyung-sook’s Please Look After Mother makes the short list and Murakami does not! Shin becomes the first Korean to make the list! Razia Iqba, the announcing judge, called the decision “pleasurable and daunting.” The books were so good they broke with tradition and upped the list to 7 books from 6. Four of the…
A couple more things found on the web that don’t merit a full post, but deserve being noted. First, an excellent interview with Yi Mun-yol, possibly Korea’s greatest translated man of fiction (partly because he’s had a relatively large number of works translated, partly because he’s just that good^^). The interview is part of a…
2011 was an active year in Korean literature. • First, as the year began, Korea lost one of its great authors, and one well represented in translation, Park Wan-so. An international literary treasure as well a national one, Park’s literary career spanned thirty years, and she wrote more than 20 novels and 100 short stories,…
Apparently it came in 10th, but that’s still a “best ever” for Korean fiction. You can look at its splendor below.^^
Really good news, as it may open the door for other prizes to think about Korean translations as prizeworthy. KTLIT has talked about the failure of Korean lit to get into these contests here, here, and here. But the epic commercial success of Shin Kyung-sook’s Please Look After Mom was apparently too massive to ignore.…
An article in the Korea Times in which Shin Kyoung-sook says that foreign readers are inspiring her to write more: “I didn’t think of foreign readers until my book was printed in English. But now after meeting my fans in other countries, I feel foreign readers have given me a strong energy for my next…
I was on vacation last month, in the United States, and the wife and I rented a car in Reno Nevada, then drove to Mt. Lassen, Ashland Oregon, Medford Oregon, Coos Bay Oregon, then down the California coast to Fort Bragg and across California back to Reno Nevada. What in the world does this have…