Author: Bruce Fulton

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Selected publications

Selected translations

Literature and poetry in translation titles for 2021: more than a dozen to look forward to!

posted updated 18 Jan 2021 by Philip Gowman 8 minute read

This is now LKL’s fifth annual post that looks at the literature and fiction titles we’re looking forward to over the coming twelve months. Since last year we’ve made things easier for ourselves by investing some time building a book database that aims to catalogue all physical publications of Korean literature in translation, as well […]

A look back at our 2020 reading diary

posted by Philip Gowman 3 minute read

Like many readers, we started the year with good intention of blitzing through the pile of new titles that were promised for the coming months, as well as making inroads into the backlog. And we genuinely got off to a good start with a string of fun K-thrillers, some of them new, some not: The […]

SOAS online seminar: One Left, by Kim Soom

event date Fri 04 Dec 2020 posted

It’s been a while since we last had a SOAS Friday evening seminar, but this should be worth the wait. One Left: A powerful tale of trauma and endurance that transformed a nation’s understanding of Korean comfort women Bruce Fulton and Ju-Chan Fulton (Translators) Friday 4 December 2020, 5 – 7pm Online. Register via Zoom […]

Brief review: Kim Sagwa – Mina

posted updated 17 Apr 2020 by Philip Gowman 3 minute read

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 […]

Book review: Hwang Sun-won — Lost Souls

posted updated 6 Nov 2020 by Philip Gowman 9 minute read

Hwang Sun-won: Lost Souls Translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton Columbia University Press 2010, 354pp Having quite enjoyed two of Hwang Sun-won’s fuller-length stories – Trees on a Slope and Descendants of Cain – though without necessarily being enamoured of the characters of the stories they inhabited, I was looking forward to tackling Lost Souls, […]

Book review: Haïlji — The Republic of Užupis

posted updated 31 Mar 2019 by Philip Gowman 3 minute read

Haïlji: The Republic of Užupis Translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton Dalkey Archive 2014. 160pp Originally published as 우주피스 공화국, Minumsa, 2009. Imagine what Haruki Murakami might come up with in a collaboration with David Lynch, after watching a few monster-free episodes of Doctor Who, and you might get an inkling of what to expect […]

Who Ate Up All The Shinga – a critical essay by Alice Bennell

posted updated 4 Nov 2020 by Alice Bennell 6 minute read

Alice Bennell, UK winner of last year’s Korean Literature Translation Institute essay contest on “There a Petal Silently Falls”, contributes her entry for this year’s competition. Who Ate Up All the Shinga is an autobiographical novel chronicling the early life of the author, Park Wan-Suh. The Japanese occupation of Korea, and events leading up to […]

Struggling with all the Shinga

posted updated 4 Nov 2020 by Philip Gowman < 1 minute read

Well, I just finished this year's essay book (Park Wan-suh’s Who ate all the Shinga?) and it's even harder than last year. Nothing to get your teeth into. And that wasn’t meant to be a pun. Last year’s text at least gave you a challenge in trying to understand it. This year’s adds very little […]

The 2010 Essay Contest – Who ate up all the Shinga?

event date 01 May - 31 May 2010 posted

Last year, the Korean Literature Translation Institute launched an essay competition to encourage people to read Korean Literature in translation. The title chosen was Ch’oe Yun’s There a Petal Silently Falls – a novella which I personally struggled with. In my own feeble submission, I suggested that a colonial period novel would have been a […]

Petal essay contest Salon des Refusés 3

posted updated 4 Nov 2020 by Peter Corbishley 8 minute read

Peter Corbishley offers his entry into the “There a Petal Silently Falls” essay competition. A Korean novella – a human tragedy It is unnerving to have images from a half-recollected film1 play through a reading of There a Petal Silently Falls.2 Yet that sense of disorientation evocatively models how the girl’s bewildered spirit-awareness3 interweaves, recalls […]

Petal essay contest Salon des Refusés 2

posted updated 4 Nov 2020 by Philip Gowman 7 minute read

The LKL Editor contributes his own unsuccessful entry into the “There a Petal Silently Falls” essay contest. Ghosts of Kwangju Ch’oe Yun’s There a petal silently falls is an interesting choice for a first Korean literature essay contest. Elusive in content, obscure in characterisation and insubstantial in length, it encourages a discussion not about the […]

Petal essay contest Salon des Refusés 1

posted updated 4 Nov 2020 by Michael Rank 7 minute read

Earlier this year the Korean Literature Translation Institute sponsored an essay competition based on Ch’oe Yun’s There a Petal Silently Falls. Now that the finalists have been announced, Michael Rank is the first to offer his submission for publication on the pages of LKL. The Kwangju (Gwangju) massacre of 1980 has been called the most […]

Troubles with the Petal

posted updated 4 Nov 2020 by Philip Gowman < 1 minute read

12 Sep: The only way I’m going to be able write anything on There a Petal is to leave it to the last minute and rely on the deadline pressure for inspiration. Having now read it three times I have no angle on it at all. 10 Oct: Really struggling to write 2,000 words on […]