Once again it is time for the awesome Seoul Book Fair (Wednesday October, 7 through the 11th), and once again the website in English hasn’t bothered to put up the program. So, KTLIT is stepping in to make a quick and dirty translation of the presentation program. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be the same…
A brief video review of Kim Yu-Jeong’s The Heat of the Sun, mention of his other work, Korean stories with related themes, and the Kim Yu-Jeong Literature Museum just outside of Chuncheon. If this story seems interesting to you, the fine folks at the Literature Translation Institute of Korea have made it available, free, online,…
Last Saturday I was lucky enough to moderate a Seoul ABD event with three Korean authors: Hwang Jung-eun – ‘Kong’s Garden’ 황정은- “양의 미래” Yun I-hyeong – ‘Danny’ 윤이형-“대니” Cheon Myeong-kwan – ‘Homecoming’ 천명관-“퇴근” The Q&A section of that event is below, with the interview here.. Seoul ABC events are held regularly in Seoul, and you…
Last Saturday I was lucky enough to moderate a Seoul ABC event with three Korean authors: Hwang Jung-eun – ‘Kong’s Garden’ 황정은- “양의 미래” Yun I-hyeong – ‘Danny’ 윤이형-“대니” Cheon Myeong-kwan – ‘Homecoming’ 천명관-“퇴근” The interview section of that event is below, with the audience Q&A to follow tomorrow.. Seoul ABC events are held regularly…
I was lucky enough to attend the 37th (?) Swedish Literary Society meeting at the Foreign Press Club. This was a notable event because it brought internationally famous Korean poet Ko Un (here is his biography by Brother Anthony), back to the event (He also kicked off the series many years ago). The Swedish Ambassador…
September 12 at 4pm, Haechi Hall, Myeongdong: Korean Modern Literature Meet three of the brightest young imaginative voices in Korean fiction Cheon Myeong-Kwan, Hwang Jung-Eun, and Yun I-Hyeong on September 12th in Seoul in English AND Korean! Courtesy of Asia Publishers and Seoul ABC. Authors will read, books will be sold, half of the presentation…
The creation of Hangeul, by King Sejong, was certainly the most important step in the development of modern Korean literature, as it radically increased the ease of literacy in Korea (today Korea is one of the most literate nations in the world) and it opened the doors to literature to women, the poor, and those…
Cheon Myeong-kwan’s Modern Family (고령화 가족 or “Aging Family” in Korean) is a novelistic Korean soap-opera with a bad attitude. How much of a soap-opera? The narrator, In-mo, a failed director and divorced alcoholic consistently explicitly compares the twists and turns of his family life to one, and at one point even prays for divine…
It’s difficult to place Homecoming by Cheon Myeong-Kwan (Asia Publishers) as either a Super-dystopic, after the crash novel or as a rugged individualist story in which hard work is rewarded and sloth discarded in the most horrible way. OK, no it’s not, it’s a super-dystopic view of what would happen in Seoul if the continuing…
Hwang Jung-Eun’s Kong’s Garden (Originally titled “Yang’s Future”, a title making a play on the meaning of the future of an unmarried woman and one that gives a glimpse at the often random titling of translations), is a glimpse of the post-modern world of the worker. A future in which the single female narrator, who…