Having done my list of upcoming fiction titles, I’ve been working on a similar list of upcoming non-fiction. But in compiling the non-fiction list I’ve identified several titles that slipped under the radar towards the end of last year. Three of them relate to film. No doubt, following all the buzz about Parasite, there will […]
Two days total immersion in BTS at Kingston: a report from the Global Interdisciplinary Conference Project
When I told someone at the (virtually empty) office on the first Friday of the new decade that I would be spending the weekend at a two-day conference on BTS, he at first looked blank. I had to explain to him that they’re a K-pop boy band, at which he grinned and urged me to […]
A round-up of three early January exhibitions
LKL visits three solo shows in the first two weeks of 2020: Suh Shinuk, Song Gin-young and Kang Jungsuck. Hopefully we’ll get to Tate Modern to see the big Nam June Paik exhibition before it closes. Suh Shinuk’s Man(u)fractured has been extended for a week, to 18 January. It’s well worth a trip to North […]
Global CONNECT, BTS art project launched at Serpentine
London’s Serpentine Gallery was chosen as the venue for today’s launch of a new international art project in collaboration with BTS. The band attended the event via a live stream. According to the Korea JoongAng Daily, the art project titled “CONNECT, BTS” is a series of exhibitions in five cities on four continents that is […]
Moon Jae-in’s 2020 New Year speech
Here is the text of President Moon Jae-in’s 2020 New Year Message, sourced from the Blue House website. Fellow Koreans, The New Year, the Year of the White Rat, has dawned. We rang out the significant past year that marked the centennial of the March First Independence Movement and the founding of the Provisional Republic […]
Upcoming literature and fiction titles in 2020 [updated]
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I’m hoping that, as in previous years, by posting my own list of upcoming literature and fiction titles – pulled together by some targeted searching on Amazon and a trawl through Barbara J Zitwer’s website – I might persuade others to supplement it from their own specialist knowledge. Whatever happens, books inevitably fall through the […]
Kim Jong Un’s 2020 New Year message
Notes of a speech given by Chairman Kim Jong Un at the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea serves as this year’s New Year address. Text sourced from dprktoday.com Report on 5th Plenary Meeting of 7th C.C., WPK Pyongyang, January 1 (KCNA) — The 5th Plenary Meeting of the […]
January events 2020
Thankfully, a reasonably quiet start to the New Year – and new decade. The KCC hasn’t yet announced its first season of film nights for the year – but in the past couple of years, if I recall right, those haven’t started until February anyway. But don’t miss their showcase of the Lady Hyegyong Uigwe. […]
A review of the Korean cultural year 2019
A review of some of the highlights and trends in the Korean cultural year, primarily in London but also with half an eye to anything we might have seen elsewhere in the UK. The review is a personal one, inevitably skewed towards the events we managed to get to. Introduction This time last year I […]
What have we been reading in 2019? Here are the highs and lows of our reading diary
I alternate my reading, on no systematic basis, between fiction and non-fiction, trying to maintain a balance between keeping up to date with the most important new publications and working through the guilt pile of past publications that I failed to read when they came out. I don’t have time to read much apart from […]
Kim Un-su interviewed in Korea Times
Anna Jiwon Park has a good interview with Kim Un-su (author of The Plotters, among other things) in the Korea Times this week. It’s a nice leisurely two-page read for the Weekender section, clocking in at 3,000 words. Park has an engaging conversation with him, and makes an interesting observation: His books not only have […]
Season’s greetings to all our readers
Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year to all of LKL’s readers, friends and contributors. Have a peaceful break, and may 2020 turn out better than 2019. As in previous years, thanks are due to Jieun Kim aka The Drawing Hand for the London Korean Christmas design which adorns the cards that some of […]
Brief book review: Suni Samchon
Hyun Ki-young: Suni Samchon Translated by Lee Jung-hi Asia Publishers Bilingual Edition, 2012, 186pp Jeju Island, in Korean literature of the late 70s and 80s, is not the honeymoon destination of more recent years. It was a place of poverty, of bitter memories – a place to escape from rather than a destination to visit […]
Son Heung-min’s astounding goal against Burnley
It’s already been called the goal of the season. Son Heung-min’s goal against Burnley which contributed to Spurs’s 5-0 home win on 7 December was magical – a solo effort that starts just outside his own box and ends, after a run the length of the pitch, with a shot inside the Burnley penalty area. […]
Brief review: Kim Sagwa – Mina
Kim Sagwa: Mina Translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton Two Lines Press, 2018, 237pp Originally published as 미나, Changbi Publishers, 2008. Hell Joseon has become an increasingly familiar context for contemporary Korean literature. But the novels and stories I can think of all focus on the struggles of the poor or those who are just […]
December events 2019
Thankfully, this is a much quieter month. Exhibitions Still on: Nam June Paik at Tate Modern (till next year) Suh Do-ho near Liverpool Street (till next year) Suh Shinuk at Unit 1 | Workshop (till early January) Oh Man Chul at Han Collection (till 21 December) Coming this month Kang Kyungsuck at the KCC (from […]
Review: Hyun Kil-un – Dead Silence and other stories of the Jeju Massacre
Translated by Hyunsook Kang, Jin-ah Lee and John Michael McGuire Eastbridge Books, 2006, 206 pages On a trip to Jeju Island a few years ago I remember having a slightly tipsy interaction with a Jeju-based journalist and intellectual, as we staggered from 2cha to 3cha via a liquor store. “I don’t like America”, he solemnly […]