Synopsis from the Kyobo book store website, run through the Papago translator: Kwon Yeo-sun’s novel “The Unknown Area.” The main character Myung-deok hits the ball at dawn and exits the club alone and calls Dayoung. Dayoung was in Yeoju because of the ceramic biennale. The crescent-shaped daytime moon floats in the sky, and Myeongdeok, who … [Read More]
Booklist: Literature Fiction and Poetry (page 28)
Poems by Huh Sukyung (K-Poet 04)
Text from the Kyobo website and google translate: The first Korean-English University perspectives covering all Korean poets The ‘K-Poet’ series is intended to be distributed to the domestic and foreign markets after extracting the essence of Korean poetry that you always want to read at your bedside, translated into English, and translated into English and … [Read More]
Poems by Baek Seok (K-Poet 03)
Text from Kyobo bookstore and Google translate: The first Korean-English University perspectives covering all Korean poets The ‘K-Poet’ series is intended to be distributed to the domestic and foreign markets after extracting the essence of Korean poetry that you always want to read at your bedside, translated into English, and translated into English and Korean. … [Read More]
Nostalgia
From the publisher’s website: Bilingual Edition. Translated from the Korean by Sung-Il Lee and Insoo Lee. Edited by Stanley H. Barkan. This is a bilingual (Korean-English) selection of poems by the famed South Korean poet Chung Ji-yong, imprisoned by the North Koreans, translated by Sung-Il Lee and his father Insoo Lee, formatted in parallel texts, … [Read More]
Nobody Checks the Time When They’re Happy
No One Checks the Time When They’re Happy is a collection of stories, by turns sad and funny, about the thwarted expectations of the young as they grow older. Eun Heeyung’s characters are misfits who, by virtue of their bodies or their lack of social status, are left to dream of momentous changes that will … [Read More]
The White Book
While on a writer’s residency, a nameless narrator wanders the twin white worlds of the blank page and snowy Warsaw. THE WHITE BOOK becomes a meditation on the color white, as well as a fictional journey inspired by an older sister who died in her mother’s arms, a few hours old. The narrator grapples with … [Read More]
A Lesser Love
A Lesser Love presents poems of love and departure for romantic partners, family members, and even national citizens. Raised around diasporic Korean communities, E. J. Koh describes her work as deeply influenced by the idea of jeong, which can be translated as a deep attachment, bond, and reciprocity for places, people, and things. The spirit of … [Read More]
Among the Dead
Ana is a Korean American who travels to Seoul in 1975 to retrieve her recently deceased father’s ashes. Luke is a young American soldier fighting in the jungles of Myanmar in 1944. Number Four is the name of a Korean comfort woman camping out on a bridge in Seoul in 1950, waiting for the return … [Read More]
North Station
A writer struggles to come to terms with the death of her beloved mentor; the staging of an experimental play goes awry; time freezes for two lovers on a platform, waiting for the train that will take one of them away; a woman living in a foreign country discovers she has been issued the wrong … [Read More]
Poems by Ahn Do-Hyun (K-Poet 02)
Text from the Kyobo bookstore website and Google translate: The first Korean-English University perspectives covering all Korean poets The ‘K-Poet’ series is intended to be distributed to the domestic and foreign markets after extracting the essence of Korean poetry that you always want to read at your bedside, translated into English, and translated into English … [Read More]
The Song of Ch’unhyang: Musical Text as compiled by Master Singer Kim Yŏn-su
The Song of Ch’unhyang is one of the most popular p’ansori pieces in the genre’s classic repertoire. Its story is simple. Ch’unhyang (“Spring-Fragrance”) is the beautiful daughter of a deceased aristocrat and Wŏlmae, a retired kisaeng. Her ambiguous social status becomes the key dramatic complication when she falls in love with Yi Mongnyong, the young … [Read More]
Poems by Ko Un (K-Poet 01)
The first Korean-English translation of a Korean poet “K-Poet” series, which aims to select the essence of Korean poetry and translate it into English and serve it to domestic and foreign markets. It represents the only Korean-English translation in the world. Korean poems, which will be considered masterpieces over time, regenerate the lives of the … [Read More]
Sweet Potato: Collected Short Stories
Kim Tongin (1900-1951) is one of Korea’s earliest and most respected modern writers whose naturalist fiction brilliantly depicts Korean life during a period of profound social change. Namesake of the prestigious Dong-in Literary Award, Kim Tongin’s succinct writing style can still inspire readers and provide insight into early 20th century Korea over 60 years after … [Read More]
Ah, Mouthless Things
From the publisher’s website: Born in Sangju, Korea in 1952, Lee Seong-bok earned his Ph.D. in French Language and Literature at Seoul National University, then taught French Literature at Keimyung University in the city of Daegu. Since his first poem, “At a Familiar Brothel,” was published in 1977, he has impressed readers with his opulent … [Read More]
The Hole
In this tense, gripping novel by a rising star of Korean literature, Oghi has woken from a coma after causing a devastating car accident that took his wife’s life and left him paralyzed and badly disfigured. His caretaker is his mother-in-law, a widow grieving the loss of her only child. Oghi is neglected and left … [Read More]
Pachinko
Publisher description: Yeongdo, Korea 1911. In a small fishing village on the banks of the East Sea, a club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a fifteen-year-old girl. The couple have one child, their beloved daughter Sunja. When Sunja falls pregnant by a married yakuza, the family face ruin. But then Isak, a Christian minister, offers her a … [Read More]