Based on a remarkable true story, the New York Times bestselling author of Please Look After Mom brilliantly images the life of Yi Jin, an orphan who would fall under the affections of the Empress and become a jewel in the late Joseon Court. When a novice French diplomat arrives for an audience with the … [Read More]
Booklist: Korean literature in translation (page 20)
On an Autumn Night: Classical Korean Poetry
From the back cover: The poems collected here are in classical Chinese, the language of learning in Korea before the turn of the twentieth century. Though they range from the seventh to the nineteenth century, most were written during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). They are five-character line quatrain poems written in the New Style, the … [Read More]
Poems by Kim Hyun (K-Poet 06)
From the LTI Korea website: They(Poem) were born as part of a larger project, titled “The Future of Voice.” That is why I begin each poem with a sound effect, indicated by an international phonetic character, instead of simply adding footnotes. I hope that the sound, born in another time-space than the visiblbe(legible) screen(writing), has … [Read More]
Poems by Ahn Sang-hak (K-Poet 05)
From LTI Korea website: The world of Ahn Sang-Hak’s poetry is built on the philosophy of non-doing naturalism. According to this idea, since nature exists, it clearly has substance; however, since its nature is not to stay fixed, but rather to change in every moment, it only appears in variations of itself. In the same … [Read More]
If my tongue refuses to remain in my mouth
From the publisher’s website: Sunwoo Kim’s debut collection of poems, If My Tongue Refuses to Remain in My Mouth, appeared in 2000, declaring in the boldest terms that at the outset of the new millennium she would bring to the page a radically different conception of poetry. Central to her work is the belief that … [Read More]
Endless Blue Sky
Set in 1940s colonial Korea and Japanese-occupied Manchuria, Endless Blue Sky tells the love story between Korean writer Ilma and Russian dancer Nadia. The novel is both a thrilling melodrama set in glamorous locations that would shortly be tragically ravaged by war, and a bold piece of writing espousing new ideas on love, marriage, and … [Read More]
The Foresight of Dark Knowing: Chŏng Kam Nok and Insurrectionary Prognostication in Pre-Modern Korea
From the publisher’s website: Korea has long had an underground insurrectionary literature. The best-known example of the genre is the Chŏng Kam nok, a collection of premodern texts predicting the overthrow of the Yi Dynasty (1392–1910) that in recent times has been invoked by a wide range of groups to support various causes and agendas: from leaders … [Read More]
Dust and other stories
Yi T’aejun was one of twentieth-century Korea’s true masters of the short story–and a man who in 1946 stunned his contemporaries by moving to the Soviet-occupied northern zone of his country. In South Korea, where he is known today as “one who went north,” Yi’s work was banned until 1988. His momentous decision did not … [Read More]
The Good Son
Early one morning, twenty-six-year-old Yu-jin wakes up to a strange metallic smell, and a phone call from his brother asking if everything’s all right at home – he missed a call from their mother in the middle of the night. Yu-jin soon discovers her murdered body, lying in a pool of blood at the bottom … [Read More]
Seo-u / Thou (K-Fiction 022)
Synopsis pasted verbatim from Amazon.com <blockquoteclass=”quote”> Thou b The epicenter of ghost stories that began with “rumors of rumors of rumors” – In July 2018, “K-Fiction” Ganghwa road was elected as a “room” in the New Years edition of the Kyunghyang Newspaper in 2012 and started to work. He has been awarded the 8th Young … [Read More]
April Snow (K-Fiction 021)
Synopsis pasted, in all its glorious Konglish, from Amazon.com: Snow of April b The story of people who feel the pain of others through their suffering b In April 2018, K-Fiction is the twenty-first piece, Son Won Pyung studied philosophy in sociology at the university and studied film directing at the Korean Film Academy. He … [Read More]
Gendered Landscapes: Short Fiction by Modern and Contemporary Korean Women Novelists
Gendered Landscapes presents ten short stories and novellas by representative modern Korean women writers dating from the 1930s to the end of the 1990s. Signature pieces selected from the acclaimed novelists’ repertoire, these narratives address issues related to Korean women as gendered beings in a Confucian-governed patriarchal society. Thematically interlinked and compellingly articulated, they bring … [Read More]
We, Day by Day
From the publisher’s website: Whether suturing NoHae Park and Pablo Neruda together in a cinematic sweep or refusing the global economy’s demands to rush and sign over one’s literary life, Jin’s portraiture is time illuminated by an intelligence committed to “how strange questions, fountains of brilliant blood, gush unceasingly in the boundless desert of answers.” [Read More]
Land of Tears
Land of Tears is an anthology of short stories about the Korean experience of poverty and mental and physical anguish. Most of the stories have to do directly or indirectly with the Korean War. The stories depict the lives of a wide range of characters, such as a North Korean People’s Army soldier, a South … [Read More]
A Black Kite
From the publisher’s website: This selection from Kim Jong-Gil’s work contains just over 50 poems, written throughout his career and chosen by himself. The poems are those by which he wishes to be remembered. The topics are personal, often the result of a journey back to a place familiar in childhood, or of a moment … [Read More]
Whisper of Splendor
From the publisher’s website: Whisper of Splendor brings about 60 poems from the author to demonstrate his poetic ideals and art. In the book, the reader notes the persona’s propensity to take away the tangled web of meanings that packs his consciousness, so that he can take in things as they are, as they move. Declining … [Read More]