The JoongAng Daily reports that your bog standard soju now has 18% alcohol content, down from 23% 15 years ago. You can even find some below 17%. If trends continue, with wines getting stronger (you can get extreme wines at around 15%) it won’t be long before your everyday soju is weaker than your everyday … [Read More]
LKL articles by Philip Gowman (page 80)
Hyein Seo wins Best Designer
Congratulations to Hyein Seo, whose work is currently showing in the K-Fashion Odyssey exhibition at the KCC. She has won the British Council and British Fashion Council’s International Fashion Showcase Emerging Talent Award 2014 for Best Designer. Sources: KCCUK | British Fashion Council [Read More]
K-Pop Now! by Mark James Russell – coming soon from Tuttle Publishing
At LKL, we loved Mark James Russell’s first book on the Korean entertainment industry, Pop Goes Korea. So we’re looking forward to his follow-up, focusing more narrowly on K-pop, which is due to be launched in April from Tuttle Publishing. It’s already available for preorder on Amazon.co.uk. Below is the official press release, or you … [Read More]
Buy a Haegue Yang print for £150, courtesy of the London Underground
I completely missed this little project when it was launched in May last year. But yesterday morning on my daily commute to work I noticed an advertisement for it in Westminster tube station which I hadn’t spotted before. As the escalator carried me away to the Jubilee line, I turned to browse the lists of … [Read More]
Waterstones stocks up on Hwang Sunmi
Seen at the Waterstones in Canary Wharf today: a pile of Hwang Sunmi’s The Hen who Dreamed She Could Fly. Nice to see that they’re including it in the buy one, get one half price promotion. My neighbourhood bookstore at home rang me today to tell me my own copy had arrived, so I’ll be … [Read More]
Book review: Jung Young-moon — A Chain of Dark Tales
Jung Young-moon: A Chain of Dark Tales Translated by Inrae You & Louis Vinciguerra Stallion Press, 2010, 199pp Originally published in 1998 as 검은 이야기 사슬 Jung Young-moon’s chain of forty-five dark tales are dark indeed. Not in a way that will give you nightmares, but in a way that makes you feel mildly uneasy. They inhabit … [Read More]
How to organise and accommodate an ever-growing library?
When I started this Korean lark over 10 years ago, obviously I didn’t have any books on the subject. Over the years, the collection has been piling up, literally. Translated literature; novels in English by Koreans and by foreigners about Korea; the regrettably necessary section on North Korea; books on Korean art, history, film, music, … [Read More]
Kim Hyesoon’s I’m OK, I’m Pig! upcoming in time for London Book Fair
Kim Hyesoon is the latest author to benefit from the London Book Fair. Kim’s collection of poems I’m OK, I’m Pig! will be forthcoming in April from Bloodaxe Books (the same publishers who brought out Ko Un’s latest collection First Person Sorrowful last year). Kim will be at the London Book Fair, and is the … [Read More]
Looking back at 2013: Domestic news
Our final look back at 2013, including a random collection of news stories, mainly domestic, that caught our attention. In the news Asiana Airlines flight 214 from Incheon crashed on landing at San Francisco airport on 6 July. The Boeing 777 had approached the runway too low and too slow. An American local TV station … [Read More]
Lyoo Songnyeo wins ArtGemini Prize 2013
Congratulations to Lyoo Songnyeo for winning the painting section of the ArtGemini prize, a new international competition started in 2013. Lyoo is based in Frankfurt and participated in a group show of Buddhist-themed art at Mokspace in 2011 (LKL review here). Her winning work can be seen at Rebecca Hossack gallery in Conway Street until … [Read More]
What to look out for in the run-up to the London Book Fair 2014
The British Council’s and KCCUK’s involvement with the Korea market focus of the London Book Fair will ensure a range of events to examine and promote Korean literature in translation. In fact, the KCC will be focusing on literature all year. And that’s in addition to publishers using the fair as a prompt to publish … [Read More]
Looking back at 2013: DPRK and regional news
In our fourth review of 2013, we look at some of the North Korea related news, and stories which put the peninsula in a wider East Asian context. DPRK Google chairman Eric Schmidt, together with a former governer of New Mexico, had a four day trip to North Korea in January. “I’m still spinning my … [Read More]
Looking back at 2013: Entertainment news
In the third of five retrospective articles, we recall some of the entertainment stories that caught our eye in 2013. Korean box office records were broken in 2013. Korean films accounted for 59.5 percent of box office takings, with the feel-good drama Miracle in Cell 7 gaining 12.8 million admissions. The big new band to … [Read More]
Looking back at 2013: Culture, tourism and branding stories
In the second of five articles looking back over 2013, we recall some of the tourism and heritage stories that made the news. And we also take a look at some of the stories about Korean food, given the increasing popularity of Korean cuisine of Korea. Arts and Heritage Sungnyemun, the great Namdaemun gate, reopened … [Read More]
Twinsters featured in Metro
The heartwarming story of two identical twins from Busan being adopted and brought up in separate continents made it into London freesheet the Metro yesterday. Samantha and Anais, having successfully raised $30,000 for phase 1 of an autobiographical documentary project on Kickstarter, are now looking to raise $80,000 for post-production. They are over a quarter … [Read More]
February events 2014
London Fashion Week The KCC’s first new show of the new year is the K-Fashion Odyssey – it forms part of the International Fashion Showcase 2014 linked to London Fashion Week. London Fashion Week itself opens on 14 February with catwalk shows from J JS Lee and Eudon Choi. The work of Rejina Pyo will also … [Read More]