After last year’s online-only edition of Collect it was good to get back to a physical show this year. It was also refreshing to see how many artists had taken advantage of the changed circumstances of lockdown to move their work in different directions; and galleries with an established roster of artists also tried to … [Read More]
LKL articles by Philip Gowman (page 12)
Exhibition visit: LUX — New Wave of Contemporary Art
The current video art exhibition in what I assume is a large disused car park underneath 180 Strand comes to an end in a week’s time. It’s well work a visit. In a vast space and in the absence of natural light, the curators have been able to display a range of large-scale video pieces … [Read More]
Non-fiction titles expected in 2022: LKL’s picks
In previous years this post has been, to a greater or lesser extent, a list of every non-fiction title I could find that was going to be hitting the bookshops in the coming year. As the LKL Korea Book Database has grown in size, including its stock of future publications, there are now far too … [Read More]
Upcoming literature and fiction titles for 2022
Last year was an amazing one for Korean literature in translation, with plenty of lively titles published. 2022 looks for the moment like it’s going to be a little quieter, but new publications sometimes pop out of nowhere, so this list of anticipated books for this year is almost bound to be proved incomplete. There … [Read More]
February events 2022
Best wishes for the Year of the Tiger. Things are taking a while to get started this year, but there’s beginning to be more signs of life on the Korean cultural front. Exhibitions Last chance: Union Gallery’s London Art Fair group show, including two Korean artists, is open until 5 February Last chance: Anicka Yi’s … [Read More]
Children’s books – the latest translation trend?
In this month’s edition of World Literature Today, Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp draws attention to a number of recent publications of translated children’s books coming from Korea. She speculates: The interest in the Korean children’s market may have been spurred by innovative illustrator, animator, and artist Baek Heena being named the 2020 laureate of the Astrid … [Read More]
Exhibition visit: Anicka Yi — In love with the world
I’m wondering how many visitors to Anicka Yi’s scene-stealing installation In Love with the World managed to engage with what was apparently one of the key elements in the work. According to the information provided in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall (quoted in the shaded box below), depending on what time of day you visited … [Read More]
Call for Papers: The 1st Oxford CKS Graduate Students’ Forum
While there have been Korean Studies conferences at Oxford before – for example BAKS held its 2018 workshop at Wolfson – this is the first Graduate Students’ forum. Here is the call for papers. The 1st Oxford CKS Graduate Students’ Forum 18 March 2022 Call for Papers – deadline 4 February 2022 It is a … [Read More]
Moon Jae-in’s 2022 New Year speech
Here is the unofficial translation of President Moon’s 2021 New Year’s Address, sourced from the Cheongwadae website: 2022 New Year’s Address by President Moon Jae-in 3 January 2022 Fellow Koreans, We stand again on the starting line of a New Year. At the center of a tumultuous period in world history, we ring in the … [Read More]
January events 2022
As far as I can see, it’s going to be a pretty dry January. Maybe some events will pop up and surprise us: perhaps, for example, SOAS or Edinburgh will come up with some seminars that haven’t been announced yet. Other than that, it looks like there’s going to be plenty of time to catch … [Read More]
A review of the Korean cultural year 2021
Each year when I come to write this review, I wonder whether Korean culture in the West has reached its high water mark. And every year so far I’ve come to the same conclusion. Korean music and film, TV and food continue to win admirers, and we can expect to see it continue to thrive … [Read More]
Report on 4th Plenary Meeting of 8th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea
The end-of-year report from the Party plenary meeting, sourced from Rodong Sinmun and knca.kp. NKNews has alternative takes on the report: “North Korea vows military buildup due to ‘destabilizing’ situation on peninsula” and also “Plenum’s agriculture focus suggests dire food shortages in North Korea” Let Us Strive for Our Great State’s Prosperity and Development and … [Read More]
A look back at our 2021 reading diary
Looking back at this year, it’s been one of the best for new translations of Korean literature that I can remember. There have been at least ten new fiction titles, and unusually for me I managed to get through all the titles I was intending to. All of them are recommendable in their different ways. … [Read More]
Season’s Greetings to all our readers
Another year of intermittent lockdown and social distancing measures, and once again The Drawing Hand has risen to the challenge of creating a suitable seasonal image for LKL’s readers. It’s difficult to see how things are going to change much over the coming months. But we have our enthusiasms and friendships to sustain us. So, … [Read More]
A look back at some of the movies in the 2021 London Korean Film Festival
One month after the close of LKFF we’re finally getting around to penning some thoughts on the movies we saw there. We’ve already commented on Im Sang-soo’s latest, which left us with very warm feelings about the festival as a whole. What about the rest of the programme? Let’s get this out of the way … [Read More]
Review: Kim Bo-young – On the Origin of Species and other stories
After the mild disappointment that was the audiobook of Kim Bo-young’s I’m Waiting for You (let down by the somewhat unwieldy story The Prophet of Corruption) it was with a slight sense of wariness that I embarked upon the Kaya collection of her short stories On the Origin of Species. I was also cautious because … [Read More]