Sopyonje is a disturbing and haunting novel set in Korea s southern provinces and among the pansori singers, practitioners of the ancient storytelling art where blindness is seen to be an aid to creating pure art, being free of sensory distraction and temptation. A Song man causes his daughter blindness in order to keep her … [Read More]
Booklist: Literature Fiction and Poetry (page 46)
Exploring North Korean Arts
This book is a cooperation between the MAK and the University of Vienna and contains a number of in-depth essays by international writers on a wide spectrum of issues, and with much detailed background information. The relationship between art and ideology is examined, how modern and traditional values are dealt with, as well as the commercial … [Read More]
This Burns My Heart
Chamara is difficult to translate from Korean to English: To stand it, to bear it, to grit your teeth and not cry out? To hold on, to wait until the worst is over? Such is the burden Samuel Park’s audacious, beautiful, and strong heroine, Soo-Ja Choi, faces in This Burns My Heart, an epic love story set in the intriguing … [Read More]
The Early Lyrics, 1941–1960
From the publisher’s website: So Chong Ju, also known by the penname Midang, was born in Sonum village in the North Cholla Province of Korea, in 1915. His first poems were published in the late 1930s; his first collection of poems dates from 1941. The present volume contains the complete poems of his first four … [Read More]
Please Look After Mother
Please Look After Mother is the story of So-nyo, a wife and mother, who has lived a life of sacrifice and compromise. In the past she suffered a stroke, leaving her vulnerable and often confused. Now, travelling from the Korean countryside to the Seoul of her grown-up children, So-nyo is separated from her husband when … [Read More]
Mujong (The Heartless): Yi Kwang-Su and Modern Literature
Yi Kwang-su (1892-1950) was one of the pioneers of modern Korean literature. When the serialization of Mujong (The Heartless) began in 1917, it was an immediate sensation, and it occupies a prominent place in the Korean literary canon. The Heartless is the story of a love triangle among three youths during the Japanese occupation. Yi … [Read More]
Scenes from Ch’onggye Stream
Written in the 1930s, “Scenes from Ch’ǒnggye Stream” is a collage of the daily lives of ordinary people who live along Ch’onggy Stream, which courses through the centre of Seoul, Korea. The novel is divided into fifty chapters of differing lengths. It has neither a protagonist nor a plot but instead is a naturalistic description … [Read More]
Miracles in Korea
Miracles in Korea is a collection of thirty-eight stories about Korean mountain wizards, Taoist hermits with supernatural powers, divine Taoists, and divine beings, who enjoy perennial youth, longevity, and immortality, and sometimes ascend to heaven. Its author, Hong Manjong (1643-1725), drew upon A Survey of the Geography of Korea and several unauthorized chronicles and compiled … [Read More]
Waxen Wings: The ACTA Koreana Anthology of Short Fiction from Korea
The short story has been the genre of choice for writers of literary fiction in modern Korea and it continues to thrive in the new millennium. Waxen Wings: The Acta Koreana Anthology of Short Fiction from Korea offers a diverse sampling from a century of modern Korean short fiction, beginning with stories from two early … [Read More]
A Chain of Dark Tales
A Chain of Dark Tales contains forty-five short stories. The phrase that most accurately describes this book would be The Great Quilt, a panoramic quilt with all possible, even impossible, thoughts and images and situations. Its as if he has laid out forty-five patches of unique materials, patterns, and colors in a public square and … [Read More]
The Island
With its unique style and heart warming stories, The Island has attracted widespread public attention since it was published in Korea in 1991. The bulk of the work recounts childhood memories and has its primary setting the authors island home. The Island is essentially a novel of remembrance. It is also a novel infused with … [Read More]
The Cozy Path
This searingly poignant collection of seven short stories portrays the lives of characters destined to tragedy by recent events in Korean history and by the harsh realities of a capitalistic society. Author Chan Jungs prophetic imagination renders the misfortunes and anguish of his protagonists with unflinching realism and metaphysical insight. Especially, The Symphony of Sorrowful … [Read More]
I Drift on Unknown Waters in a Glass Boat
I Drift on Unknown Waters in a Glass Boat is the story of Eun-ryeong Kim, a restless, lonely young woman who moves to a small seaside town after breaking off an engagement with a man she does not love. There she is unexpectedly swept into a turbulent relationship with two men: the attractive, young poet … [Read More]
A House on the Road
“A House on the Road” features a disintegrating process of the patriarchal headship of a family, the basic pillar of Korean society, and the family members’ inner struggles in the process against the backdrop of political turmoil in the 1970s and the 1980s. The novel also features Korean women’s life that had to undergo sacrifice … [Read More]
A New Season Approaching Devour It
No information available. [Read More]
ChaRyong’s Kiss
Bilingual edition, only available in Korea. According to Brother Anthony, the volume contains “poems for children about his [Ko Un’s] daughter” [Read More]