From the Interpark website: I feel that that I am writing poems seriously. For that, I am indebted to the late Seoung Chan-gyeong (1930-2013), who wrote poems more seriously than I. He was a disciple of beauty and also never stopped searching for the truth. I feel that I belong to a different world than … [Read More]
Booklist: Literature Fiction and Poetry (page 19)
Night Picture of Rain Sound
Seventeen short stories transcending the line between fantasy and reality. Sue Ja Joo is on the frontier of ‘Smart Fiction’. A new genre between poetry and the short story, unique to the Korean literary world. ‘Night Picture of Rain Sound’ opens the small door in the corner where certitude is imagination, and imagination is certitude. … [Read More]
Understanding Hallyu: The Korean Wave Through Literature, Webtoon, and Mukbang
This book sheds light on aspects of the Korean Wave and Korean media products that are less discussed—Korean literature, webtoon, and mukbang. It explores the making of these Korean popular cultural products and how they work and engage media recipients regardless of their different national, cultural, and geographical backgrounds. Drawing on narrative theory and cultural … [Read More]
The Mermaid from Jeju
Inspired by true events on Korea’s Jeju Island, Sumi Hahn’s “entrancing [debut] novel, brimming with lyricism and magic” (Jennifer Rosner, The Yellow Bird Sings) explores what it means to truly love in the wake of devastation. In the aftermath of World War II, Goh Junja is a girl just coming into her own. She is … [Read More]
Hope is Lonely
Kim Seung-Hee is regarded in her native Korea as being radically different from any other Korean poet, male or female, in her choice of themes and poetic expression as this selection from two of her recent collections demonstrates. Her poetry is strongly female and feminist, deeply personal, at times surreal, always humane. As John Kinsella … [Read More]
Loving
From the agent’s website: A gentle fable by the South Korean poet, which is like a balm for the reader. The story is a simple one. A restless wanderer learns there is no place like home. This wanderer is a fish on a wind chime called Blue Goggle Eyes, and she is in love with … [Read More]
Lonesome Jar
Translator’s note: “Lonesome Jar” is a collection of 20 short fables expressing wisdom about life. These beautiful editions of translations of Jeong Ho-seung’s “children’s stories for grown-ups” benefit from the illustrations from the Korean editions. Contents: Author’s Preface • 5 | A Hangari Jar • 13 | Lovebirds • 22 | Flood Tide and Ebb … [Read More]
Banned Book Club
When Kim Hyun Sook started college in 1983 she was ready for her world to open up. After acing her exams and sort-of convincing her traditional mother that it was a good idea for a woman to go to college, she looked forward to soaking up the ideas of Western Literature far from the drudgery … [Read More]
Looking Back Life Was Beautiful: Drawings for My Grandchildren
Based on the Webby award-winning Instagram account Drawings for My Grandchildren, this beautifully-illustrated book celebrates the special love shared between grandparents and their grandchildren. Like many grandparents wishing to stay close to their grandchildren in a world in which so many families are spread across the globe, Korean grandparents Grandpa Chan and Grandma Marina, decided … [Read More]
Beautiful and Useless
From the publisher’s website: In Beautiful and Useless, Kim Min Jeong exposes the often funny and contradictory rifts that appear in the language of everyday circumstance. She uses slang, puns, cultural referents, and ‘naughty, unwomanly” language in order to challenge readers to expand their ideas of not only what a poem is, but also how … [Read More]
Phone Bells Keep Ringing for Me
This volume selects poems of many decades by one of the most startling, distinctive, and influential feminist voices in contemporary Korean poetry. Against the limits society would erect around her, Choi Seungja’s poetry trains a keen attention on everyday objects and situations until loneliness, time, emptiness, love, death and even brief-lived delight glow with uncanny … [Read More]
Parasite: A Graphic Novel in Storyboards
Discover the illustrations that inspired the historic, OSCAR(R)-winning film’s every shot in this graphic novel drawn by Director Bong Joon Ho himself. So metaphorical: With hundreds of mesmerizing illustrations, Parasite: A Graphic Novel in Storyboards is a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the making of one of the best films in years and a brand-new way to experience a … [Read More]
Nineteen
From the publisher’s website: At nineteen, the idea that you have your whole life ahead of you with endless possibilities can leave you terrifyingly stiff. Throwing mobility to the wind, you dull yourself with booze. The grownups around you are stunted by their own failures so they act out—with alcohol, too, sometimes with violence. What … [Read More]
Feeling Never Stops (K-Poet 16)
Text from the listing on the Interpark website, fed through the Microsoft translation engine where necessary: ‘Informal Sadness’ That Doesn’t Make the Edge of Tears Joo-Chul Ahn’s New Poem Collection Feeling Never Stops The ‘K-Poet’ series introduces the essence of Korean poetry that you always want to read at your bedside. Korean poetry, which will … [Read More]
Love in Sa Pa (K-Fiction special)
A love that has no beginning and no end. The story of Sapa’s ‘Love Market’ where unrequited love meets. A very special romance with the literary prototype of writer Bang Hyun-seok, who loves the world and cares for people. Bang Hyun-seok’s 『At Sapa』 was published as a K-Fiction special edition. His new work, the story … [Read More]
HappyLand (K-Poet 15)
This title is listed only on the LTI Korea website. It is available from Kyobo bookstore, but probably nowhere outside of Korea. The following description is from the Korean on the Kyobo website, fed through Papago I met the sky alive, so I accomplished everything. Kim Hae-ja’s new collection of poems, “Happy Land”. “K-Poet” series … [Read More]