Born in 1933 in a small rural village in Korea’s North Cholla Province, Ko Un grew up in a Japanese-controlled land that was soon to experience the horrors of the Korean War. He became a Buddhist monk in 1952, and began writing in the late 1950s. Ten Thousand Lives is his major, ongoing work, which … [Read More]
Booklist: Literature Fiction and Poetry (page 17)
Love in the Big City
A fresh and unique debut novel by the bestselling young star of Korean queer fiction. Love in the Big City is an energetic, joyful, and moving novel that depicts both the glittering nighttime world of Seoul and the bleary-eyed morning-after. Young is a cynical yet fun-loving Korean student who pinballs from home to class to the … [Read More]
Lemon
‘A haunting literary crime story … Razor-sharp observations of class, gender and privilege in contemporary Korea’ Cosmopolitan In the summer of 2002, nineteen-year-old Kim Hae-on was murdered in what became known as the High School Beauty Murder. There were two suspects: Shin Jeongjun, who had a rock-solid alibi, and Han Manu, to whom no evidence could … [Read More]
The Cabinet
Cabinet 13 looks exactly like any normal filing cabinet…Except this cabinet is filled with files on the ‘symptomers’, humans whose strange abilities and bizarre experiences might just mark the emergence of a new species. But to Kong, the harried office worker whose job it is to look after the cabinet, the symptomers are a headache; … [Read More]
Cave Boys (K-Poet 22)
K-Poet series that meets both Korean and English at the same time. Poet Lee Seol-ya’s 『Cave Boys』 was published as the 22nd collection of poems. From his first collection of poems, We Decided to Get Darker, the poet’s poetry clock, who dictated the voices of the marginalized and the suffering, and never neglected to listen … [Read More]
Beginning the End (K-Poet 21)
Poet Kim Keun’s 『Beginning the End』 was published as the 21st collection of K-poet poems in Korean and English. Poet Kim Keun’s new poetry collection, who debuted in 1998 and published poems such as 『Bam Boy’s Outing』, 『See you at the Cloud Theater』 and 『When you wash your face in the dark』, is divided into … [Read More]
It’s OK, Slow Lizard
In a lush, sun-dappled forest, animal friends discover the advantages of living slowly, in this soothing picture book from beloved South Korean author and illustrator Yeorim Yoon and Jian Kim. Little Bird is all aflutter―too many things to do. Elephant cries with frustration when a shoelace breaks. Rabbit tries so hard and loses the race … [Read More]
On Translating Modern Korean Poetry
From the publisher’s website: On Translating Modern Korean Poetry is a research monograph exploring the intricacies and complexities of translating modern Korean poetry. This monograph highlights the difficulties entailed in translating Korean poetry, due to the lexical, structural, social, expressive and attitudinal levels with which the translator must be engaged. Featuring all-new translations, this book explores … [Read More]
The Waiting
From the publisher’s website: The story begins with a mother’s confession…sisters permanently separated by a border during the Korean War Keum Suk Gendry-Kim was an adult when her mother revealed a family secret: She had been separated from her sister during the Korean War. It’s not an uncommon story–the peninsula was split across the 38th … [Read More]
Magic Candies
A quirky story about finding your voice, from internationally acclaimed author Heena Baek. Tong Tong could never have imagined what everyone around him was thinking. But when he gets hold of some magic candies, suddenly there are voices everywhere. He can hear how his couch feels, what upsets his dog, that his demanding dad loves … [Read More]
Skinship
WINNER OF THE PEN/ROBERT W. BINGHAM PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE STORY PRIZE • The breathtaking debut of an important new voice—centered on a constellation of Korean American families “To encounter these achingly truthful, beautiful stories of newcomer Americans is like gazing up at the starry vault of a perfect night sky; it’s immediately dazzling and impressive, and yet the … [Read More]
Moon Pops
A witty, weird, and wonderful spin on a classic Korean folktale One sweltering summer night, while the many residents of one apartment building are struggling to fall asleep, the moon begins to melt. Granny hears it dripping and runs out to catch the moon drops in a bucket. At first unsure what to do with … [Read More]
The World’s Lightest Motorcycle
Yi Won confronts a wired, technological world, often in the mirror, in these inventive, daring and subversive poems. A successor to Korean feminist poets like Kim Hyesoon, Yi Won frequently writes about the perilousness of maintaining one’s human identity in a high-tech, digital environment. In this debut book in English, her poems range from avant-garde prose … [Read More]
Cursed Bunny
Cursed Bunny is a genre-defying collection of short stories by Korean author Bora Chung. Blurring the lines between magical realism, horror, and science-fiction, Chung uses elements of the fantastic and surreal to address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society. Anton Hur’s translation skilfully captures the way Chung’s prose … [Read More]
Gold Rush (K-Fiction 030)
“Gold Rush” by Su-jin Seo, an epic of the cool end The 30th work of K-Fiction. Writer Seo Su-jin’s short story ‘Gold Rush’ tells the story of Seo-in and Jin-woo, a couple living in Australia. Writer Sujin Seo started her work after receiving the Hankyoreh Literary Award in 2020 for 『Korean Teacher』, and currently lives … [Read More]
Shoko’s Smile
From the publisher’s website: ‘Written with sober detail, filmic precision and absolute control . . . an incredibly impressive collection told with realism, seriousness and moral integrity’ Observer In crisp, unembellished prose, Choi Eunyoung paints intimate portraits of the lives of young women in South Korea, balancing the personal with the political. In the title story, … [Read More]