A collection from Korea’s premier living poet [Read More]
Booklist: Korean literature in translation (page 51)
Singing Like a Cricket, Hooting Like an Owl
From the publisher’s website: Kyu-bo Yi (1168–1241), the greatest of the classical Korean poets, was born into a very turbulent period of history, when the Koryo kingdom was threatened from the north by barbarians and from within by the ongoing struggle for supremacy among the various factions. His poems, confessional and transcendent, describe moments of … [Read More]
The Poet
A young man’s determination to maintain his integrity in an unjust society forces him to endure a lonely and dangerous odyssey. When a governor to the King falls into rebel hands, he switches sides to save his skin. When later he is captured by royal troops, it is not only he that is condemned to … [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]
Classical Korean Poetry
From the publisher’s website: Introduced and Translated by Jaihiun Kim The 600 verses presented in this anthology will provide the reader with comprehensive and varied aspects of the sijo, the traditional Korean lyric, since its emergence as a fixed literary form as early as the late 12th century down to the 19th century. [Read More]
Han Sorya and North Korean Literature (+ Jackals)
This first and only study of North Korean literary history by a Western scholar deals with the crucial role played by Han Sōrya, chairman of the DPRK’s Federation of Literature and Art from 1948 to his purge in 1962, both in devising the iconography of Kim Il Sung’s personality cult and in defining the early … [Read More]
The Korean Singer of Tales
Publisher description: P’ansori, the traditional oral narrative of Korea, is sung by a highly trained soloist to the accompaniment of complex drumming. The singer both narrates the story and dramatizes all the characters, male and female. Performances require as long as six hours and make extraordinary vocal demands. In the first book-length treatment in English … [Read More]
Modern Korean Poetry
From the publisher’s website: Introduced and Translated by Jaihiun Kim A companion volume to the Classical Korean Poetry, this anthology provides the reader a bird’s eye view of modern, 20th century Korean poetry, thus completing the sampling of the Korean poetry beginning with the 12th century through the present. [Read More]
Reunion so far away: a collection of contemporary Korean fiction
According to WorldCat the contents of this volume are Korean short stories, translated into English, from the 70’s and 80’s which have previously appeared in the Korea Journal, as follows: Crow / Yi Tʼae-jun — Letters from Okinawa / Kim Jeong Han — Hye-ja’s snow flowers / Cheon Seung-se — Chinatown / Oh Jung Hee … [Read More]
Distant Valleys
From the LTI Korea website, which is just about the only place where you can buy this book: The poems of the early twentieth-century poet Chong Chi-yong breathe the air of the village, sea and mountains of the Korean peninsula. Fresh, concise, and rich in subtle, down-to-earth imagery, they brim with human affection and love … [Read More]
Invisible Mountains
From the back cover: Some years ago Shin Chang-ho gave me two clay figurines he made himself. I always keep them in front of me. The figurines, with their lovely quizzical expressions, seem to carry on an endless dialogue on the things nearest to Shin Chang-ho’s heart: poetry, pottery, painting. What is a poet? Someone, … [Read More]
Contemporary Korean Poetry
I have prepared this anthology with the aim of providing the reader with a bird’s-eye view of modern Korean poetry, with its best sampling, from the 1920s to the 1980s, best in the sense that it represents the varied aspects of Korean poetry [Read More]
Selected Poems of Kim Namjo
From the publisher’s website: A generous selection of poems by one of Korea’s most honored and highly regarded poets. Kim Namjo published her first book of poems, Life (Moksum), in 1953. In the years since then, in another ten collections of poems, she has explored in her books, an intensely experienced religious faith, and a … [Read More]
Peace Under Heaven
Originally published in Seoul in 1938, soon after the outbreak of the Pacific War, “Peace Under Heaven” is a satirical novel centering on the household of a Korean landlord during the Japanese colonial occupation. Master Yun, embodying the traditional ambitions of a standard Korean paterfamilias, by being projected fast forward into a modern urban environment, … [Read More]
Encounter
This historical novel, Encounter (만남), by Hahn Moo-Sook, one of Asia’s most honored writers, is a story of the resilience in the Korean spirit. It is told through the experiences of Tasan, a high-ranking official and foremost Neo-Confucian scholar at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Because of Tasan’s fascination with Western learning, then synonymous … [Read More]
A Korean Century: River and Fields
Over 100 poems of a spiritual nature. Born into a Catholic family in what is now North Korea, Ku Sang is one of South Korea’s leading poets. “”The poems display a rewarding blend of East and West, not only in religions (particularly Catholicism and Buddhism) but also in attitudes….A fine poet, well translated”” – World … [Read More]