A young Korean man scarred by war finds unlikely love in the American South in National Book Award–winning author Susan Choi’s acclaimed debut novel. Tennessee, 1955. When Chuck Ahn arrives in Sewanee to begin his studies at the University of the South, he is shy and speaks English haltingly. On the subject of his earlier … [Read More]
Booklist: Literature Fiction and Poetry (page 60)
Fugitive Dreams – Poems by Sowol Kim
From the publisher’s website: With the appearance of this English translation, Western readers will for the first time be able to appreciate the poetry of Korea’s most revered and popular modern poet. Born at the beginning of the twentieth century, Sowol Kim was the first poet to introduce the Korean vernacular into poetry. His verse … [Read More]
Heart’s Agony
From the publisher’s website: “In the back alley at daybreak I write you name, O democracy” -Chiha Kim [Read More]
A Ricepaper Airplane
From a hospital bed a dying man unfolds the tale of an arduous life on the fringes of a Hawai‘i sugar plantation in the 1920s. There Kim Sung Wha—laborer, patriot, revolutionary, aviator—envisioned building an airplane from ricepaper, bamboo, and the scrap parts of a broken-down bicycle, an airplane that would carry him back to his … [Read More]
Comfort Woman
From the publisher’s website: Possessing a wisdom and maturity rarely found in a first novelist, Korean-American writer Nora Okja Keller tells a heartwrenching and enthralling tale in this, her literary debut. Comfort Woman is the story of Akiko, a Korean refugee of World War II, and Beccah, her daughter by an American missionary. The two … [Read More]
The Moonlit Pond: Korean Classical Poems in Chinese
From the publisher’s website: Unlike poetry written in the vernacular, classical Korean poetry was heavily influenced by the great poets of the Tang and Sung dynasties and was written in Chinese, while reflecting a perspective which was uniquely Korean. This is the first and only comprehensive anthology of classical Korean poetry to appear in English. … [Read More]
Three Voices at Midnight
No synopsis available Read Charles Montgomery’s review for an indication of the contents [Read More]
A Grey Man
Choi In-hoon’s A Grey Man is a relentlessly realistic depiction of the dilemmas and disillusionments inherited by the generation of Korean intellectuals who came of age in the late 1950s, a generation born before the country was liberated from Japanese imperialism and who as adolescents endured the irrational obscenities of the Korean War. https://library.ltikorea.or.kr/node/9310 [Read More]
Playing with Fire
In this work, the smoldering hatred of the Korean War period resurfaces decades later in the form of a ruthless quest for justice. The main character, a successful Seoul businessman, has a secret past: unknown to his wife and son, he once led another life under another name as a ruthless communist partisan. After a … [Read More]
Modern Korean Verse in Sijo Form
From the publisher’s website: A decade in the making, Jaihiun Kim’s ‘Modern Korean Verse in Sijo Form’ offers what will be the twentieth century’s definitive collection of sijo. Kim begins with the work of Nam-son Ch’oe in the early 20th century and brings the collection up to date with recent poems from Chi-yob Yi and … [Read More]
The Descendants of Cain
Hwang Sun-won, perhaps the most beloved and respected Korean writer of the 20th century, based this extraordinary novel on his own experiences in his North Korean home village between the end of World War II and the eve of the Korean War when Korea had been divided into North and South by its two “liberators” … [Read More]
The Rainy Spell and Other Korean Stories
This anthology of short stories reflects the writers’ shared core experience of Korea’s trajectory from an inward-looking feudal state, through Japanese colony and battle-ground for the Korean War, to a modernizing society. Three stories have been added to the original edition. Ch’ae Man-Sik: My Idiot Uncle Ch’oe In-hun: My Idol’s Abode Ch’oe Yun: His Father’s … [Read More]
The Valley Nearby
Written by one of South Korea’s most popular authors, “The Valley Nearby”is a beautiful tale of a woman attempting to reconcile cultural tradition with her need for individuality and freedom. Living in the isolation of the country, Yun-hee is engaged in a solitary struggle. Her two worlds, that of a rural housewife and that of … [Read More]
Beyond Self: 108 Korean Zen Poems
Korea’s premier poet, the former Buddhist monk Ko Un, presents 108 Zen poems. From these poems we can taste hear, smell and see the life of Ko Un, who is affectionately called “the great mountain peak” by his friends. Note: this collection was subsequently updated and republished as What? in 2008 [Read More]
Wayfarer: New Fiction by Korean Women
The eight writers in Wayfarer are among Korea’s best known authors and bring an astonishing breadth of experience and style to the fiction collected here. They explore love and independence, break the bounds of family, are punished and resurgent. A powerful collection that strikes at the heart of what it means to be modern, to … [Read More]
Songs of the Kisaeng
Original Korean poems, written during the 16th and 17th centuries, and contemporary English translations. The original BOA Editions publication is now hard to find. Apparently however it is available as an eBook from LTI Korea. According to their website: This e-book was made by scanning and converting the original book using OCR software. We have … [Read More]