Ch’oe Yun’s Mannequin is a novel that reflects on the meaning of beauty and its many facets of existence. The beauty of the main character, Jini, is captured through a carefree imagination that describes it as the music of the wind, or something that can t be described in words. Through the beauty that penetrates … [Read More]
Booklist: Korean literature in translation (page 24)
Stories of Yi Sang
Yi Sang, who wrote during the Japanese colonial period in Korea, is considered by many critics the first modernist Korean writer. While his total work amounts to less than one thousand pages, it remains one of the most influential bodies of work in Korean literature. Dalkey Archive is pleased to publish this selection of his … [Read More]
Someone Always in the Corner of My Eye
From the publisher’s website: A Korean voice from a new generation of cutting-edge poets that will appeal to younger writers and readers. Shim includes deeply personal poems, lyric experiments, and strong social statements that reflects the voices of a community. His grandiose illusions and underprivileged whispers challenge us to consider our relationships. [Read More]
A Greater Music
Near the beginning of A Greater Music, the narrator, a young Korean writer, falls into an icy river in the Berlin suburbs, where she’s been house-sitting for her on-off boyfriend Joachim. This sets into motion a series of memories that move between the hazily defined present and the period three years ago when she first … [Read More]
The Human Jungle
Equal parts muckraking novel, transnational love story, and socially engaged panorama, Cho Chongnae’s The Human Jungle portrays China on the verge of becoming the world’s dominant economic force. Against a backdrop of rapidly morphing urban landscapes, readers meet migrant workers, Korean manufacturers out to save a few bucks, high-flying venture capitalists, street thugs, and shakedown … [Read More]
One Hundred Shadows
An oblique, hard-edged novel tinged with offbeat fantasy, One Hundred Shadows is set in a slum electronics market in central Seoul an area earmarked for demolition in a city better known for its shiny skyscrapers and slick pop videos. Here, the awkward, tentative relationship between Eun-gyo and Mujae, who both dropped out of formal education … [Read More]
Chocolate Friend and Other Stories
With vivid imagery, inventive writing style and keen perception, Han Malsook captures the multicasted interiority of alienated human beings, in particular, the psychology of contemporary women in the postwar setting. Her major work, “A Precipice of Myth” (Sinhwaui danae, 1960) utilizes existentialist perspective to probe the damaged psychology of a woman whose denial of conventional … [Read More]
A Trip Through the Mirror
The author Joo-Young Kim is well known as a novelist who writes about common people’s joys and sorrows. Graduating from the Sorabol Art College majoring in creative writing, he made his literary debut with Resting Stage, which won the New Writer’s Award from Monthly Literature. Kim is known as a writer who reproduces historical periods … [Read More]
The House of Pomegranate Trees
Hahn Moo-Sook’s fiction often embraces purity through literature. While many Korean writers enveloped in nihilism or existentialism, Hahn Moo-Sook made her mark by warmly rendering human joys rather than engaging in cynical pessimism. Her themes varied from universal concerns including love and suffering to issues specific to the Korean context, including her portrayal of the … [Read More]
Classical Writings of Korean Women
This work is a collection of essays travelogues written by women during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). The work ranges from a eulogy for a broken needle to a travelogue describing various trips to scenic spots on the Korean peninsula, including to the Keum-Gang Mountains. Now available in English, this collection gives us a sampler of … [Read More]
For Nirvana: 108 Zen Sijo Poems
From the publisher’s website: For Nirvana features exceptional examples of the poet Cho Oh-Hyun’s award-winning work. Cho Oh-Hyun was born in Miryang, South Gyeongsang Province, Korea, and has lived in retreat in the mountains since becoming a novice monk at the age of seven. Writing under the Buddhist name Musan, he has composed hundreds of poems … [Read More]
Seeking Order in a Tumultuous Age: The Writings of Chŏng Tojŏn, a Korean Neo-Confucian
From the publisher’s website: Chŏng Tojŏn, one of the most influential thinkers in Korean history, played a leading role in the establishment of the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910). Long recognized for his contributions to the development of Neo-Confucianism in Korea, Chŏng was both a prodigious writer and an influential statesman before being murdered in a political … [Read More]
Portrait of a Suburbanite
From the publisher’s website: This volume is a translation of Choi Seung-ja’s 1991 anthology titled Portrait of a Suburbanite. Published in the series of “100 Prominent Korean Poets” by Mirae Press, the poems in this volume were selected from four of Choi’s previous works titled, Love of This Age (1981), Merry Diary (1984), House of … [Read More]
A Letter Not Sent
From the publisher’s website: Farewell, my dear, may you walk alone down the dawn paths of this age, encounter the freedom of love and death, into the icy river winds, without even a tomb, into the fierce blizzards, without even a song, may you go flowing, flowing like a petal. Your tears will soon become … [Read More]
The Dog Who Dared to Dream
This is the story of a dog named Scraggly. Born an outsider because of her distinctive appearance, she spends most of her days in the sun-filled yard of her owner’s house. Scraggly has dreams and aspirations just like the rest of us. But each winter, dark clouds descend and Scraggly is faced with challenges that … [Read More]
The Story of Hong Gildong
The Story of Hong Gildong is arguably the single most important work of classic Korean fiction. Like its English counterpart, Robin Hood, it has been adapted into countless movies, television shows, novels and comics. Its memorable lines are known to virtually every Korean by heart. Until now, this incredible 19th century fable has been all … [Read More]