Coming into the New Year World Literature Today has posted its list of 75 Notable Translations 2012. What seems most notable to me, is its complete exclusion of the Korean literature translated this year. Really? The year after Please Look After Mom blew Korean literature onto the international scene and no mention of Korean fiction;…
An exchange of emails today reveals that Kim Young-ha is back in Korea (Busan) and all over the internet. Following are three semi-related pieces of Kim Young-ha news. • As I think most of us now know, Kim Young-ha became only the second Korean writer to ever be nominated for the Man Asia Literary Prize.…
History and literature have recorded diasporas of over 900,000 Koreans in Japan (the so-called zainichi), 40,000 Koreans in the Karafuto Prefecture in Russia (now Sakhalin), almost 10,000 Koreans in Hawaii, and an unknown number in Manchuria. But partly due to its relatively small size (about 1,000 Koreans) the Korean diaspora in Mexico was relatively unknown.…
So, here’s the problem… Somebody goes to check out a piece of Korean literature on Amazon and they’re not sure what they want to do. They need a bit of convincing (or unconvincing!) so they look around the page to try to figure the book out. They look for a couple of things: a good…
On September 17th, at the Scandanavia Design House in Apgujeong, the Seoul Literary Society (a function of the Swedish Embassy in Seoul) Kim Young-ha gave a speech on the things in his youth that affected his writing, and then answered questions from the audience. KTLIT was there, with the handy-dandy iPhone and camera, and recorded…
The Swedish embassy in Seoul reports: Whatever Happened to the Man Stuck in the Elevator?, a Korean short story collection written by Kim Young-ha, a representative of Korea’s new generation of writers, was recently translated into Swedish and also published by Tranan, a Swedish publisher. This is partly interesting to English-language readers because the press…
The Korea Herald notes that Asia Publishers has just put out a 15-volume bilingual Korean literature series, titled Bi-lingual Edition Modern Korean Literature. But it seems to feature all the usual suspects and previously translated works. Really? This is getting past ridiculous. I suppose the defense will be that this volume is for “Korean Studies” courses,…
Rules: Have your reading club randomly choose five Kim Young-ha works to read. Each reader may read 50 pages of any one work each day. As you find examples of Kim’s representative themes, fill out your bingo card. The first reader to complete a horizontal, vertical, or 4-space diagonal line wins a pair of reading…
This is a project I’m glad to say KTLIT had a hand in. We talked to the Review as they were planning things (actually, we also met them in Seoul and their posh Hong Kong offices!), and KTLIT provided the team that interviewed (and translated the interview) with Shin Kyung-Sook. This volume is a treasure-trove…
This is going up on Sunday afternoon, so if you see it, be sure to check into Arirang Radio’s Catch the Wave this evening at 7 to hear my honeyed tones discussing Kim Young-ha. There is a “play” link in the middle of the page. If you’ve already listened, here is a version of what…