Kim Seung-Ok’s (김승옥) Record of a Journey to Mujin (무진기행), is a cross between a high-school reunion and a tale of multiple star-crossed lovers. It begins prosaically, with a man on the bus on the way back to his hometown of Mujin. Mujin is not a real town in Korea, as far as I can…
A totally awesome collection of 10 books, sold elsewhere only individually, for only $65. But.. it’s only available for three more days, so take advantage of it now. Here is the whole deal as explained by Dalkey: Library of Korean Literature, 10-volume set Volumes 1-10 Special offer available January 17-31: buy 10 volumes for $65 and enter Coupon codeLOK10FOR65 at checkout…
The BBC has produced a 25 minute audio-documentary on Korean Poet Ko Un called Ko Un: The People’s Poet of Korea. The documentary includes a plummy-voiced BBC announcer, lightly plucked gayageum, both Korean and English versions of Ko’s poetry, and commentary from a variety of sources who kind of sum Ko up as “embodying” South…
LTI Korea has done a rather cool thing and placed 20 works of early-modern Korean fiction online, where they can be accessed as PDF files or through an iPhone application that can bring them to a readers’ e-device. LTI has created the equivalent of a free collection of modern colonial fiction of Korea, and to…
I go to Gyeongju and visit the Pak Mok-wol and Kim Dong-ni Literary House. Along the way I go to several temples, a sea-burial site of an ancient Korean King, and much more. You can watch live at 1 pm Seoul Time, 4 am GMT, 11 pm EST and 8pm in California. Watch live here: http://www.arirang.co.kr/Player/TV_Live.asp?code=TVonAir…
The Literature Translation Institute of Korea has been working hard this year to bring Korean Literature to non-Korean language readers. To thank them, all you have to do is go to their Facebook Page and press the “LIKE” button. Also, you can follow them on Twitter at @ltikorea (or, if you’re a Google+ person, here). But,…
From the reborn blog “Subject, Object, Verb” comes the news that Pyun Hye-young has won the 38th annual Yi-Sang Literary Prize, for her story, Monsoon. Monsoon tells the story of the difficult relationship between a couple that has lost their child. Pyun Hye-young was chosen by a distinguished panel of judges lead by Seoul National University…
Pak Wan-sŏ (not how she preferred her name to be Romanized, which was Park Wansuh), is a beloved Korean writer whose writing can at first appear deceptively simple; women’s works, so to speak. It is easy to lump her work into the category of that of Amy Tan in the United States, or how Kyoung-sook…
This was going to be a simple review, after all, I’d reviewed this story once before, in a different edition. But now, reading it years later and with far more experience in grappling with Korean literature in translation, it may seem like a far different creature for me. So, although this has been reviewed on…
Yi Cheong-jun’s (or Yi Chong-jun, as usual there is disagreementㅠㅠ) The Wounded is a powerful exploration of the damage done by war, and the ‘face’ that creates the wounded, both those who can identify the source of their wounds, and those who are scarred in ways that do not have clear, particular source. The story was…