Hyun Ki-young was born on Jeju Island in 1941 and graduated from Seoul National University. He has served as the Managing Director of the National Literary Writers Association and as the President of the Korean Arts & Culture Foundation (2003). Hyun was also the director of the Committee for the Investigation of the April 3rd … [Read More]
Booklist: Literature Fiction and Poetry (page 45)
Soul of Darkness (Bi-lingual, Vol 2 – Division)
No synopsis available. Available from Seoul Selection and on Kindle [Read More]
The Wounded (Bi-lingual, Vol 1 – Division)
No synopsis available [Read More]
River of Fire and Other Stories
O Chonghui is an immensely accomplished author, having won both the Yi Sang and Tongin awards, Korea’s most prestigious prizes for fiction. Translations of her works into Japanese, English, French, and other languages have earned her international acclaim, generating comparisons with Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Munro, and Virginia Woolf. O Chonghui crafts historically-rooted yet timeless … [Read More]
Reading North Korea: An Ethnological Inquiry
Often depicted as one of the world’s most strictly isolationist and relentlessly authoritarian regimes, North Korea has remained terra incognita to foreign researchers as a site for anthropological fieldwork. Given the difficulty of gaining access to the country and its people, is it possible to examine the cultural logic and social dynamics of the Democratic … [Read More]
The Orphan Master’s Son
Publisher’s description: Citizens of our beloved Democratic Republic of North Korea! Imagine the life of an orphan boy from nowhere who is plucked from his orphanage by the military, to be trained as a tunnel assassin, a kidnapper, a spy. He has no father but the State, no sweetheart but Sun Moon, the greatest opera … [Read More]
Drifting House
A haunting and unforgettable debut spanning the last seventy years of Korean history, including the BBC Short Story Prize shortlisted story ‘The Goose Father’. Alternating between the lives of Koreans struggling through seventy years of turbulent, post-World War II history in their homeland and the communities of Korean immigrants grappling with assimilation in the United … [Read More]
The Growth of a Shadow
From the publisher’s website: A selection of seventy-one poems by Korean author Taejoon Moon, these short, reflective poems shine a light on the ordinary aspects of everyday life through Moon’s keen observations of his surroundings combined with his use of rich detail. From a woman struggling with cancer to a flower dying in a pot, … [Read More]
Himalaya Poems
From the publisher’s website: In 1997, Korean poet Ko Un and a few companions spent forty days of rough traveling through Tibet, despite the fact that years before the poet had learned that an undiagnosed attack of tuberculosis in his youth had seriously damaged his lungs. Enduring terrible pain and near death, the poet survived … [Read More]
Blue Stallion: Poems of Yu Chi-whan
From the publisher’s website: This is the first anthology of the poetry of Yu Chi-whan, the foremost poet of twentieth-century Korea, in English translation. Translated by an admirer of Yu Chi-whan as man and poet, the poems selected for inclusion in this volume provide an overview of his poetic world. Appearing in the chronological order … [Read More]
Our Encounter: Selected Poems of Kyu-Hwa Kim
From the publisher’s website: Our Encounter contains fifty poems by Kyu-Hwa Kim that express real life situations in her own unique imagery: passing by, distance, love, loneliness, and anxiety, among others. The poems have some specific characteristics: well-structured, thoughtful and intellectual inspiration; common words that convey imaginary esthetic feeling with maturity; and good sense that … [Read More]
Somewhere Far Away: Poems of Moon Hee Kim
From the publisher’s website: Poems in this volume reflect the poet’s life in a myriad of ways like the light cast through a prism. The fifty-three poems collected in the book fall into two groups: those that reveal what the poet feels and thinks while living her daily life, and those that deal with what … [Read More]
All the Garbage of the World, Unite!
The celebrated Korean poet Kim Hyesoon writes from a radiant black zone where matter becomes dark matter, human becomes trinket, garbage becomes god, a zero-point for our present moment’s grotesque and spectacular inversions. This volume includes a selection of recent work, the landmark poem “Manhole Humanity,” and the essay “In the Oxymoronic World.” With fiercely … [Read More]
There Remain Words to Say
From the publisher’s website: There Remain Words To Say includes select poems by Yoo An-Jin, 2010 recipient of the Ku Sang Literature Award. The volume contains a companion video CD with interviews, poems, and spoken and sung recitation, with English subtitles. [Read More]
Korean Tea Classics by Hanjae Yi Mok and the Venerable Cho-ui
Publisher description: Three ancient texts expressing the essence of the Korean Way of Tea are here translated into English for the first time. The oldest, ChaBu (Rhapsody to Tea), by Hanjae Yi Mok (1471-1498), is a sophisticated and delicate celebration of tea. The author was a scholar of considerable attainments who died far too early. … [Read More]
Instances: Selected Poems
From the publisher’s website: One of Korea’s most exacting and innovative poets, Jeongrye Choi writes a poetry that uncovers the strangeness of everyday experience. Alert and streetwise, but tuned into the undercurrent of things, Choi’s poetry creates environments at once familiar but dreamlike, marked by a preternatural clarity. Favoring imagistic condensation and formal trimness, Choi’s … [Read More]