From the publisher’s website: “Professor Chung has drawn on all the tools in his scholarly arsenal to convey the flavor and meaning of the original Korean texts. Written vernacular Korean was still very much a work in progress during the early twentieth century and the meaning of the Korean texts is not always clear-cut, even … [Read More]
Booklist: Translated non-fiction (page 5)
Lee Ufan: Art of Encounter
Painter, sculptor, writer and philosopher Lee Ufan (born 1936) first came to prominence in the late 1960s as one of the major proponents of the Japanese avant-garde group Mono-ha. Japan’s first contemporary art movement to gain international recognition, the Mono-ha school of thought rejected Western notions of representation, choosing to focus on the relationships of … [Read More]
Conscience in Action: The Autobiography of Kim Dae-jung
From the publisher’s website: This book is an English translation of the authoritative autobiography by the late South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. The 2000 Nobel Peace Prize winner, often called the Asian Nelson Mandela, is best known for his tolerant and innovative “Sunshine Policy” towards North Korea. Written in the five years between the end … [Read More]
Reading Colonial Korea through Fiction: The Ventriloquists
Publisher description: Reading Colonial Korea through Fiction is a compilation of thirteen original essays which was first serialized in a quarterly issued by the National Institute of Korean Language, Saekukŏsaenghwal (Living our National Language Anew) in a column entitled, “Our Fiction, Our Language” between 2004 to 2007. Although the original intent of the Institute was to elucidate on … [Read More]
The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down: How to be Calm in a Busy World
From the publisher’s website: THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER, WITH OVER THREE MILLION COPIES SOLD AROUND THE WORLD ‘Is it the world that’s busy, or my mind?’ The world moves fast, but that doesn’t mean we have to. In this timely guide to mindfulness, Haemin Sunim, a Buddhist monk born in Korea and educated in the United … [Read More]
Dynamics of Expansion and Reduction – Selected Writings on Korean Contemporary Art
Publisher description: This book, the first major publication in English devoted to the Korean critic and art historian Lee Yil, is a collection of texts on aesthetics, theory and history of art by the main observer of “Dansaekhwa”, or Korean monochrome. It also brings together essays and monographic prefaces that gave wide coverage to artists … [Read More]
The Aphorisms of Yi Deok-mu: Musings of a Grateful Reader
From the publisher’s website: This volume brings together excerpts from Seongyuldang nongso [蟬橘堂濃笑: The Inexorable Glee of Master Seongyuldang] and Imokgusimseo [耳目口心書: First-hand Observations] by the 18th-century scholar Yi Deok-mu. Seongyuldang nongso is a collection of Yi’s observations about life. In Imokgusimseo, Yi writes about what he heard, saw, said, and felt in the day-to-day. … [Read More]
A River in Darkness: One Man’s Escape from North Korea
The harrowing true story of one man’s life in―and subsequent escape from―North Korea, one of the world’s most brutal totalitarian regimes. Half-Korean, half-Japanese, Masaji Ishikawa has spent his whole life feeling like a man without a country. This feeling only deepened when his family moved from Japan to North Korea when Ishikawa was just thirteen … [Read More]
Peace on a Knife’s Edge: The Inside Story of Roh Moo-hyun’s North Korea Policy
From the publisher’s website: Lee Jong-Seok served as vice-secretary of South Korea’s National Security Council and as its unification minister under the Roh Moo-Hyun administration (2003–08). After Roh’s tragic death in 2009, Lee resolved to present a record of the so-called participatory government’s achievements and failures in the realm of unification, foreign affairs, and national … [Read More]
Doctrine and Practice in Medieval Korean Buddhism: The Collected Works of Ŭich’ŏn
From the publisher’s website: Ŭich’ŏn (1055-1101) is recognized as a Buddhist master of great stature in the East Asian tradition. Born a prince in the medieval Korean state of Koryŏ (960-1279), he traveled to Song China (960-1279) to study Buddhism and later compiled and published the first collection of East Asian exegetical texts. According to … [Read More]
Numinous Awareness is Never Dark: The Korean Buddhist Master Chinul’s Excerpts on Zen Practice
From the publisher’s website: Numinous Awareness Is Never Dark examines the issue of whether enlightenment in Zen Buddhism is sudden or gradual—that is, something intrinsic to the mind that is achieved in a sudden flash of insight or something extrinsic to it that must be developed through a sequential series of practices. This “sudden/gradual issue” was … [Read More]
The Analects of Dasan – A Korean Syncretic Reading (five volumes)
From the publisher’s website: With extensive research and creative interpretations, Dasan’s Noneo gogeum ju (Old and New Commentaries of the Analects) has been evaluated in the academia of Korean Studies as a crystallization of his studies on the Confucian classics. Dasan (Jeong Yak-yong: 1762-1836) attempted through this book to synthesize and overcome the lengthy scholarly tradition of … [Read More]
Classical Writings of Korean Women
This work is a collection of essays travelogues written by women during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). The work ranges from a eulogy for a broken needle to a travelogue describing various trips to scenic spots on the Korean peninsula, including to the Keum-Gang Mountains. Now available in English, this collection gives us a sampler of … [Read More]
Seeking Order in a Tumultuous Age: The Writings of Chŏng Tojŏn, a Korean Neo-Confucian
From the publisher’s website: Chŏng Tojŏn, one of the most influential thinkers in Korean history, played a leading role in the establishment of the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910). Long recognized for his contributions to the development of Neo-Confucianism in Korea, Chŏng was both a prodigious writer and an influential statesman before being murdered in a political … [Read More]
A Chinese Traveler in Medieval Korea: Xu Jing’s Illustrated Account of the Xuanhe Embassy to Koryŏ
From the publisher’s website: “The king and ministers, superior and inferior, move with ritual and refinement. When the king goes on an inspection tour, everyone has the correct ceremonial attributes and the divine flag [troops] gallop in front while armored soldiers block the road. The soldiers of the Six Divisions all hold their attributes. Although … [Read More]
Philosophy of the Nest
In Philosophy of the Nest, eminent Korean philosopher and poet Park Ynhui encapsulates decades of scholarship as he traces the world history of philosophy from his original perspective. The author, previously published in the West as Park Yee-mun, a nom de plume, follows an overarching vein in the history of philosophy and introduces readers to the meanings … [Read More]