This K-Fiction Series represents the brightest of young imaginative voices in contemporary Korean fiction. Each issue consists of a wide range of outstanding contemporary Korean short stories that the editorial board of Asia carefully selects each season. These stories are then translated by professional Korean literature translators, all of whom take special care to faithfully … [Read More]
Archives: Books (page 136)
Is That So? I’m a Giraffe (Bi-lingual, Vol 34 – Seoul)
Bilingual (Korean/English) edition of a surreal novella that “captures a brutally honest view of the sobering, tragic realities of Korean society” (from the Afterword by Kim Nam-hyeok) [Read More]
The Book of Masks
Hwang Sun-won has no peer among living Korean writers. The Book of Masks is widely regarded as the greatest work of his long and distinguished career. These are revealing, gripping and disturbing stories of South Korean life today. Contains the following stories: A Numerical Enigma Blood Folding the Umbrella For Dear Life In a Small … [Read More]
Christmas Specials (Bi-lingual, Vol 35 – Seoul)
“A few days before Christmas, he was drinking coffee from a vending machine in the rest area of a library. He pulled out the fountain pen the woman had given him as a graduation present and started to jot down projected expenses for a Christmas date. Dinner: 20,000 won. Movie Tickets: 14,000 won. Present: 20,000 … [Read More]
My Innocent Uncle
Ch’ae Man-shik is one of the great talents of modern Korean literature. His penetrating mind, command of idiom, utterly realistic dialogue, and keen wit produced a fictional style all his own. This volume contains three of his finest stories, two published during the Japanese colonial occupation of Korea (1910-1945) and one shortly thereafter. In each … [Read More]
Modern Korean Short Stories
Contains the following stories Ch’oe In-hun: Laughter (1966) tr Lee Sang-ok Hahn Moo-Sook: The Angel tr Chung Chong-wha Hwang Sok-yong: The Road to Sampo (1973) tr Kim Uchang Hyeon Jin-geon: The Fire tr Kathryn Kisray Kang Shin-jae: The Young Zelkova Tree (1960) tr Shin Hyun-song Kim Dong-in: Red Mountain: A Doctor’s Memoir / The Red … [Read More]
Meetings and Farewells: Modern Korean Stories
Contains the following stories: Cho Sŏn-jak : The Wall Hwang Sun-won: Retreat Kim Dong-in: The Post Horse Kim Dong-ni: The Rock Kim Seung-ok: A Cup of Coffee Kim Seung-ok: Seoul, 1964, Winter Kim Yu-jeong: The Camellias Oh Young-Soo: Echoes Yi Ho-ch’ŏl: Wearing Thin Yi Hyo-seok: When the Buckwheat Blooms Yi Mun-gu: The Tale of Kim … [Read More]
Weathered Blossom (bilingual)
Part of the Modern Korean Short Stories Series, the short story Weathered Blossom (bilingual) illustrates elders in love, but also discerns the substance of love, and distance between reality and feeling of love. The lady believes that love is beautiful only with lust, as it is the only way to be blinded. Thus she realizes … [Read More]
The Snowy Road (bilingual)
A poignant, radiant tale of a mother’s ceaseless devotion to her son, The Snowy Road is the story of a family that loses everything due to an older son’s abuse of alcohol. This tragedy does not shake the mother’s resolve to continue to work hard for her younger son, making his happiness the sole goal … [Read More]
The Wounded
The civil war between the North and South left both physical and psychological wounds and the permanent division of the nation still haunt those families separated by the 38th parallel. Both The Wounded and An Assailant’s face deal with the issues of the national trauma of the Korean War. While The Wounded underscores the trauma … [Read More]
Chinatown (Jimoondang ed)
Korea was an arduous and painstaking place to live in after the nation’s civil war. Incheon, one of the war’s most famous backdrops, provides the setting for Chinatown, the story of life in one of the ubiquitous shantytown areas that dotted the Korean landscape at the time, and is a painfully real account of what … [Read More]
Shadows of a Sound
Contains the following stories: Cloudburst Clowns Cranes Drizzle Masks Shadows of a Sound Snow The Diving Girl Time for You and Me Alone Widows [Read More]
A House on the Road
“A House on the Road” features a disintegrating process of the patriarchal headship of a family, the basic pillar of Korean society, and the family members’ inner struggles in the process against the backdrop of political turmoil in the 1970s and the 1980s. The novel also features Korean women’s life that had to undergo sacrifice … [Read More]
I Drift on Unknown Waters in a Glass Boat
I Drift on Unknown Waters in a Glass Boat is the story of Eun-ryeong Kim, a restless, lonely young woman who moves to a small seaside town after breaking off an engagement with a man she does not love. There she is unexpectedly swept into a turbulent relationship with two men: the attractive, young poet … [Read More]
The Cozy Path
This searingly poignant collection of seven short stories portrays the lives of characters destined to tragedy by recent events in Korean history and by the harsh realities of a capitalistic society. Author Chan Jungs prophetic imagination renders the misfortunes and anguish of his protagonists with unflinching realism and metaphysical insight. Especially, The Symphony of Sorrowful … [Read More]
The Unforgotten War
But then, old wars never end. They simply fade away as old soldiers die off. One by one. Thus laments the veteran of the celebrated Battle of the Chosin Reservoir. The Korean War (June 1950 July 1953) is the first war that came to be known as the The Forgotten War . As the last … [Read More]