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…
I have written about North Korean fiction in the South Korean gaze in my Diaspora in a Mirror series here, here, here, and here. But now, I have some actual North Korean literature in hand, the Korean Short Stories A Collection from North Korea. It is an interesting mix, with some stories ridiculous political cant,…
This page will continue to evolve over here on the KTLIT authors page for Shin Kyung-sook, but for people using search engines, this blog post is much easier to find. SO HERE IS ALL THE INFO I HAVE AT THE MOMENT: Shin Kyoung-sook: Complete INTRO | EXTENDED BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | AWARDS | LINKS |…
Shin Kyoung-sook: Complete INTRO | EXTENDED BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | AWARDS | LINKS | ALL WORKS | TRANSLATIONS | NOVEL SUMMARIES INTRO Kyoung-sook Shin has written many works, both fictional and non fictional. She is perhaps best known in the western world for her record-breaking, Please Look After Mom, which is published in nineteen countries.…
Shin Kyung-sook has been KTLIT-wikipediafied.. Life Shin Kyung-sook was born in 1963 in a village near Jeongeup in Jeolla Province in southern Korea. She was the fourth child and oldest daughter of six. Her parents were farmers who could not afford to send her to high school, so at sixteen she moved to Seoul, where…
The Korean vision of a human’s role in the Universe, is very different from that of the West, and it is a vision that is at least partially hostile to the development of the individual, or even tragic, hero.
As I have written elsewhere, translated Korean modern literature tends to cohere around a few themes, primarily those of colonialism, civil war, and separation. While this is completely justifiable from the perspective of the last 100 years of Korean history, it can also render Korean literature, from the outsiders’ perspective, a bit monochromatic. In order…