From the publisher’s website: Everlasting Empire (영원한 제국) is a Korean historical novel written as a murder mystery. The narrator frames the main story with his “discovery” of a 150-year-old manuscript. Because of problems verifying the authenticity of the manuscript, the narrator offers the book not as genuine history but as a story. This compelling … [Read More]
Archives: Books (page 140)
Silvery World and Other Stories
From the publisher’s website: This anthology is an exciting new collection of Korean fiction in translation from the early years of the twentieth century that demonstrate the political and ideological divides that Koreans experienced during this time. Contains the following stories: Cho Myŏng-hŭi : Naktong River tr Bro. Anthony of Taize Ch’oe Chansik: The Shore … [Read More]
Toy City
Toy City is a poignant coming-of-age story of a fourth-grade boy named Yun, depicting the life of a poor family struggling to survive in the years immediately after the Korean War. An autobiographical work, the novel is written entirely from young Yun’s point of view. Alternately heart-wrenching and hopeful, this masterpiece of Korean literature is … [Read More]
Deep Blue Night
Better known as a novelist, Choe In-ho has also written strikingly original shorter fictions, of which the stories reprinted here are good examples. “Deep Blue Night” is an autobiographical story that is both contemporary in being structured about a highway journey and yet traditional in its themes of exile, wandering, and retrospection. Of interest to … [Read More]
On the Origin of Species and Other Stories
The debut English-language collection of one of South Korea’s most distinctive and accomplished sci-fi authors Straddling science fiction, fantasy and myth, the writings of award-winning author Bo-Young Kim have garnered a cult following in South Korea, where she is widely acknowledged as a pioneer and inspiration. On the Origin of Species makes available for the first time … [Read More]
The Muslim Butcher
Several decades after the Korean War, the unnamed narrator of this story is taken in by an aged Turk, Uncle Hassan, a veteran of that conflict who makes a living as a butcher in a Seoul slum. The precocious narrator, a troubled boy, wonders who his parents are and why they abandoned him. He befriends … [Read More]
The Rainy Spell and Other Korean Stories
This anthology of short stories reflects the writers’ shared core experience of Korea’s trajectory from an inward-looking feudal state, through Japanese colony and battle-ground for the Korean War, to a modernizing society. Three stories have been added to the original edition. Ch’ae Man-Sik: My Idiot Uncle Ch’oe In-hun: My Idol’s Abode Ch’oe Yun: His Father’s … [Read More]
A Sketch of the Fading Sun
A vast number of Korean literary works have been written dealing with man-woman relationships. Notwithstanding, there has rarely been much written that has grasped, much less challenged, the relationship between man and woman as being one of oppression. As Wan-suh Park notes, it would be safe to say that most writing considered as literature beautifies … [Read More]
Tower of Ants (bilingual)
Prize-winning author In-ho Choi paints a dizzying portrait of what living in a modern, self-centered society entails in his breakthrough short story Tower of Ants. The plot centers around a young man who is going nowhere in his 9 to 5 advertising job when, one day, his apartment is suddenly infested with ants. The story … [Read More]
The Snowy Road and Other Stories
The Korean War and its aftermath serve as the backdrop for the six selections showcased in this collection offering the reader a rarely-glimpsed view of Korean life. Each of the authors represented here has been the recipient of the prestigious Korean People’s Literary Award . Their work focuses on ordinary Korean people and the impact … [Read More]
Shrapnel and Other Stories: Selected Stories of Dong-ha Lee
Exquisitely translated by Hyun-jae Yee Sallee, these stories by one of Korea’s most revered storytellers reflect poignantly on the lives of ordinary people in the midst of the economic miracle that has been taking place in Korea since the end of the Korean War. Having seen their homeland split in two, they cannot cope with … [Read More]
One Human Family and Other Stories
The devastating hold the Korean War still has on the ordinary citizens of South Korea is revealed here in a novella and four short stories. Although the war happened many years ago, old animosities remain, and elderly nursing home residents are traumatized by their belief that the new resident was a collaborator. A child is … [Read More]
The Dog Thief: Short Stories by Chul-Woo Lim
As a college student, Chul-Woo Lim witnessed the Kwangju Uprising during which hundreds of prodemocracy protesters were massacred by the South Korean government of Chun Doo Hwan. Lim’s desire to bear witness to this tragic event became one of the motivating forces behind his writing. One year after the massacre, Lim published his first short … [Read More]
Farewell Valley
Divided into four seasons, each represented by a different character, Farewell Valley is a novel in which death and suffering are a recurring motif and historical events are central to the story. The longest chapter is set during World War II, when the central character is sent to Manchuria as a comfort woman. [Read More]
Evening Glow
From the publisher’s website: In 1948 a small town in South Korea was seized by communists. A lowly butcher, enthralled by the idea that the downtrodden could take power, became a hero of the people’, slaughtering opponents with unrivalled cruelty, all witnessed by his eleven year old son, Kapsu. Now forty and living in Seoul, … [Read More]
Land (Vols 1, 2 and 3)
Global Oriental is pleased to announce publication of the English translation of Part I (in three volumes) of Pak Kyung-ni’s Land (T’oji). Originally published in five parts, the work is widely regarded as a masterpiece of Korean literature and has achieved unprecedented popularity in Korea. The epic follows the fortunes and misfortunes of several generations … [Read More]