A narrative of hurt and repentance through the stories of three generations of women. In her author’s note, Jung says that she wrote this novel because she wanted to “tell a story about illness, money, and grace”. The novel tells the story of three generations of mothers and daughters, starting with the maternal grandmother, who … [Read More]
Booklist: Literature Fiction and Poetry (page 14)
Understanding Korean Webtoon Culture: Transmedia Storytelling, Digital Platforms, and Genres
Webtoons are the latest manifestation of the Korean Wave of popular culture that has increasingly caught on across the globe in recent years, especially among youth. Webtoons are a form of comic that are typically published digitally in chapter form. Originally distributed via the Internet, they are now increasingly distributed through smartphones to ravenous readers … [Read More]
Skull Water
A remarkable intergenerational coming-of-age novel set in South Korea—about friendship, belonging, and displacement. Growing up outside a US military base in South Korea in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, Insu—the son of a Korean mother and a German father enlisted in the US Army—spends his days with his “half and half” friends skipping school, … [Read More]
100°C: South Korea’s 1987 Democracy Movement
What does it take for ordinary citizens to risk everything to protest living under a repressive government? What takes them beyond the brink, to the “boiling point”? In his graphic novel 100°C, celebrated webtoon and comics artist Choi Kyu-sok sheds a light on these questions by examining the lives of one family caught up in the great … [Read More]
Whale
A woman sells her daughter to a passing beekeeper for two jars of honey. A baby weighing fifteen pounds is born in the depths of winter but named “Girl of Spring”. A storm brings down the roof of a ramshackle restaurant to reveal a hidden fortune. These are just some of the events that set … [Read More]
Concealed Words
A debut English-language collection of hopeful and carefully attentive poems by one of South Korea’s most lauded young poets. This collection offers a selection of poems from Sin Yong-mok’s earlier collections, intended to serve as an illustration of his evolution as a poet, alongside a complete translation of the poems from his fourth collection, When … [Read More]
A Mark of Red Honor
This autobiographical novel narrated by the author’s eponymous character candidly shares the story of his birth, childhood as a sensitive boy, school years marked by infatuations with a male friend and teacher, military service as superiors’ favorite, agony as a newlywed realizing that he is unfit for marriage, roving through China as a North Korean … [Read More]
Encore (K-Poet 30)
“Somewhere, no matter how hard you try to hide it, there will be a light that will not recede.” Poet Shin Dong-ok’s 『Encore』 The 30th collection of poems in the K-Poet series, which meets together in Korean and English, has been published, and poet Shin Dong-ok’s 『Encore』 has been published. Since his debut in 2001, … [Read More]
Wolf Play
A Korean boy is ushered into a new house by his adopted American father. This new house belongs to an American boxer and her wife. American father un-adopts boy by a single signature on a piece of paper. But just before he leaves the new house, ex-father discovers that the new parents, to whom he … [Read More]
Chunja’s Nanjing
Chunja’s Nanjing explores in depth the tragic events of the 1930s dubbed the “Tragedy in Deer Valley” in Jiandao, a historical border region along the north bank of the Tumen River in China’s Jilin Province with many ethnic Koreans, in the beginning of the novel and the “Rape of Nanjing” in Nanjing, China, at the … [Read More]
Death of a Crow
The 1957 publication of this inaugural collection of short stories on the 1948 uprising on Jeju Island was to inform the world of the incident Kim Sok-pom has devoted his writing career to raising awareness of the Jeju April 3 Incident through literature. Death of a Crow (1957) marked the beginning of his campaign; known … [Read More]
I’ll Give You All My Promenade (K-Poet 29)
The moment it is removed, the text becomes detached from the artist and becomes an object floating in the world. Every time the reader reads, the poet’s walk toward “you” is constantly made into the present. So the poet leaves us with a message addressed to “you”. You” are to give everyone their own path … [Read More]
Saha
In a country called ‘Town’, Su is found dead in an abandoned car. The suspected killer is presumed to come from the Saha Estates. Town is a privatised country, controlled by a secretive organisation known as the Seven Premiers. It is a society clearly divided into the haves and have-nots and those who have the … [Read More]
My GrandMom
From an award-winning Korean author comes a charming and joyful story of the bond between a little girl and her grandma. Gee-eun is a little girl whose parents work a lot. So she spends her days with her beloved grandmother. Grandma comforts Gee-eun when she’s sad to see her parents leaving and shares in all … [Read More]
Counting the Stars at Night: The Complete Works in Verse and Prose
This book contains the complete works of Yoon Dong-ju (1917-1945), one of the most beloved poets for all Koreans, and is the first attempt at English translation in their entirety, poetry and prose. Yoon’s writings reflect the ardor and longing lodged in every young man’s and woman’s heart. In that sense, the poems contained herein … [Read More]
Launch Something!
Earth is experiencing a sweltering heatwave caused by a second “sun” – a shining object in the sky that either looks like Pac-Man or a pizza missing a slice, depending on who you ask. As this object increases in size and risks making Earth uninhabitable, the Korean government decides it has to do its part … [Read More]