A collection of short stories flirting with the surreal and Kafkaesque: a father whose ashes turn into a chatting plant, a boyfriend whose hand becomes a broccoli, a group of investigative aliens fascinated by idol culture. Yuri’s world is permeated with humour, emotions, and style, giving us a refreshing perspective into the complexities of human … [Read More]
Archives: Books (page 15)
Comics Art in Korea
In Comics Art in Korea, comics scholar John A. Lent embarks on a comprehensive exploration of the vibrant world of Korean comics, cartoons, comic strips, graphic novels, webcomics, and animation. This meticulously researched work delves deep into the intricate history, cultural significance, and artistic innovations that have shaped the comics landscape in both North and South … [Read More]
Whose Comfort? Body, Sexuality and Identities of Korean ‘Comfort Women’ and Japanese Soldiers during WWII
In recent years, international attention has been recurrently drawn to violence against civilians including sexual violence during war as a means of furthering military or political goals. The ongoing issue of comfort women has been debated not only among Asian countries including Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia, and the Philippines but also in numerous international forums. … [Read More]
Luminous
In a recently reunified Korea, robots have integrated seamlessly into society. They are our teachers, our bus drivers and policemen. They are our lovers. They are even our children. Eleven-year-old Ruijie sifts through scrap metal in a Seoul junkyard, searching for anything that might repair her failing body. There amongst the piles of junk she … [Read More]
Against Abandonment: Repertoires of Solidarity in South Korean Protest
Across the world, protest has become a much-debated tactic in struggles against inequality, political corruption, and ecological disaster. In South Korea, protest is a ubiquitous and essential form of political expression. In 1987, mass protests forced reforms that led to democratizing government. In 2017, the Candlelight movement removed the sitting president. Beyond these spectacular national … [Read More]
Invisible Land of Love: Poems of Chonggi Mah
The collection consists of the author’s monologues and narrative poems, and a single dialogue between him and his young son. Contemporary America, Korea of old and new, and parts of world are the setting. His poems are a mixture of components that shows sweetness, beauty, sadness, easiness and honesty that no one can reject. Experiences … [Read More]
Bukchon: Poems of Shin Dal-Ja
A master of one liner, Shin Dal-Ja begins another remarkable volume of verse, Bukchon, with two one-liners, and no stanza break. Adopting this simple yet hard-to-master technique, she achieves uncommon concentration and musicality. The village called Bukchon is depicted as a regional utopia. Therein are multitudes of beautiful things: age-old trees, artwork traditional and modern, totally … [Read More]
Sukhyang’s Tale & Sugyŏng’s Tale: Two Romantic Novels from Old Korea
Sukhyang’s Tale, known as one of the masterpiece women’s narratives in the 17th century of old Korea, evolves around the love story of Sukhyang and Yi Sŏn, which takes place in heaven and again on earth. It deals with stories from Sukhyang’s ordeals of being separated from her parents during a bandit riot to her … [Read More]
Hail, Che!
An explosive collection of revolutionary poems that make the case that only poetry can save humanity. Korean poet Pak Jeong-de envisioned Hail, Che! as a textual performance that sings and dreams of revolution. In these poems, he invokes the names of more than 200 artists— writers, musicians, filmmakers, and painters—whom he considers comrades capable of saving humanity. … [Read More]
Like a Fruit Tearing Its Way Out of a Flower
Like A Fruit Tearing Its Way Out of a Flower by Jang Okgwan is a collection of poems selected by the poet from his almost 40-year, award winning career. With the lightness and wit of a comedian, Jang’s meditations on aging brilliantly capture the conflict between the unflinching power of the human mind against the unavoidable … [Read More]
Capitalists Must Starve
Winner of the 2018 Hankyoreh Literature Award This work is a fictional account of real-life labour activist, Kang Juryong, who led a strike at the Pyongwon rubber factory in 1930s Pyongyang to protest working conditions. Set against the backdrop of Japanese-occupied Korea, Capitalists Must Starve follows a sharp-tongued, big-hearted heroine who dares to love, rebel, … [Read More]
Selected Works of Yi Ok
Selected Works of Yi Ok is a translation of Yi’s most important works, including Plain Verses, Short Odes of Kyǒnggŭm, and five short stories, including The Life of Student Sim, The Life of Lee Hong, The Life of Chang Boksŏn, The Life of Yu Kwangŏk, and The Life of Singer Song Silsol. Yi was a literary rebel in the Chosǒn society as Williams Wordsworth … [Read More]
A Time When I So Loved Someone
A large body of the poems in Lee Byung Ryul’s book is comprised of accounts of his own tangible life story, or his observation of other’s experience. He writes about things of deep concern to him–the love relationship between him and his beloved, trips abroad, friendship and enmity, a natural object like a persimmon, or … [Read More]
The Sensational Proletarian: Leftist Cultures in Colonial Korea
Starving ghosts, anguished farmers, and grieving mothers. Floating heads, gaunt bodies, and masses of bodily fluids. Such are the visceral sensations, exaggerated affects, and suffering subjects that characterized leftist Korean cultural production in the 1920s and 1930s. In popular fiction, print cartoons, reportage, and other emergent forms of mass culture, scenes detailing the spectacular bodily … [Read More]
Against the Chains of Utility: Sacrifice and Literature in 1970s and 1980s South Korea
The 1970s and 1980s were pivotal decades in South Korea, marked by rapid industrialization and urbanization. The language of sacrifice was constantly employed by the developmental state to justify its exploitation of workers and violation of countless civil rights as necessary for the nation’s economic growth and security. As a counter to this prevailing rhetoric, … [Read More]
Oxford Soju Club
The natural enemy of a Korean is another Korean. When North Korean spymaster Doha Kim is mysteriously killed in Oxford, his protégé, Yohan Kim, chases the only breadcrumb given to him in Doha’s last breath: “Soju Club, Dr. Ryu.” In the meantime, a Korean American CIA agent , Yunah Choi, races to salvage her investigation … [Read More]