Here is what we believe is a pretty comprehensive list of multi-author anthologies of Korean short stories translated into English, including pre-modern texts. Click on the titles or book cover to go to a list of short stories included in the anthology. The titles are sorted in date of publication, most recent first.
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The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories From the publisher’s website: This eclectic, moving and wonderfully enjoyable collection is the essential introduction to Korean literature. Journeying through Korea’s dramatic twentieth century, from the Japanese occupation and colonial era, to the devastating war between north and south and the rapid, disorienting urbanization of later decades, The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories captures a […] (Link to online store) | |
Readymade Bodhisattva Readymade Bodhisattva: The Kaya Anthology of South Korean Science Fiction presents the first book-length English-language translation of science and speculative fiction from South Korea, bringing together 13 classic and contemporary stories from the 1960s through the 2010s. From the reimagining of an Asimovian robot inside the walls of a Buddhist temple and a postapocalyptic showdown […] (Link to online store) | |
Korea’s Premier Collection of Classical Literature: Selections from Sŏ Kŏjŏng’s Tongmunsŏn From the publisher’s website: This is the first book in English to offer an extensive introduction to the Tongmunsŏn (Selections of Refined Literature of Korea)—the largest and most important Korean literary collection created prior to the twentieth century—as well as translations of essays from key chapters. The Tongmunsŏn was compiled in 1478 by Sŏ Kŏjŏng […] (Link to online store) | |
Silvery World and Other Stories From the publisher’s website: This anthology is an exciting new collection of Korean fiction in translation from the early years of the twentieth century that demonstrate the political and ideological divides that Koreans experienced during this time. Contains the following stories: Cho Myŏng-hŭi : Naktong River tr Bro. Anthony of Taize Ch’oe Chansik: The Shore […] (Link to online store) | |
Gendered Landscapes: Short Fiction by Modern and Contemporary Korean Women Novelists Gendered Landscapes presents ten short stories and novellas by representative modern Korean women writers dating from the 1930s to the end of the 1990s. Signature pieces selected from the acclaimed novelists’ repertoire, these narratives address issues related to Korean women as gendered beings in a Confucian-governed patriarchal society. Thematically interlinked and compellingly articulated, they bring […] (Link to online store) | |
Premodern Korean Literary Prose: An Anthology This anthology presents new translations of Korean prose works from the tenth to the nineteenth century. It offers insight into past Korean societies by highlighting genres that have largely not been translated, such as diaries, short fictional biographies, erotic tales, oral narratives, and novellas, all of which illustrate the depth and variety of premodern Korean […] (Link to online store) | |
An Anthology of Traditional Korean Literature This revised, expanded anthology, compiled and edited by pioneering scholar and translator Peter H. Lee, offers a representative selection of traditional Korean literature. Its rich and diverse selections, covering all genres and forms written in classical (literary) Chinese and the vernacular Korean language, were chosen for both their literary merit and socio-historical engagement with their […] (Link to online store) | |
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 […] (Link to eBook / PDF / online text) | |
Score One for the Dancing Girl Full title: Score One for the Dancing Girl, and Other Selections from the ‘Kimun Ch’onghwa’: A Story Collection from Nineteenth-Century Korea From the publisher’s website: Score One for the Dancing Girl presents more than a hundred stories from an early-nineteenth-century collection of yadam stories, the Kimun ch’onghwa (“Compendium of Records of Hearsay”). Prose tales that […] (Link to online store) | |
The Future of Silence – Fiction by Korean Women These nine stories span half a century of contemporary writing in Korea (1970s–2010s), bringing together some of the most famous twentieth-century women writers with a new generation of young, bold voices. Their work explores a world not often seen in the West, taking us into the homes, families, lives and psyches of Korean women, men, […] (Link to online store) LKL Review | |
Eerie Tales from Old Korea The tales in this book were originally translated by Homer B. Hulbert and James Scarth Gale, both of whom were missionary/scholars who arrived in Korea in the late 1880s. Hulbert published his tales in the magazine, “Korea Review” between 1902 and 1905 and Gale in the book “Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies” (1913). […] (Link to online store) | |
Rat Fire: Korean Stories from the Japanese Empire This volume brings together twelve short stories by colonial Korean proletarian writers, as well as two works written in 1946 under U.S. military occupation. The volume provides a diverse, ever-changing portrait of the complex movements of people and ideas that constituted both colonial Korea and the Japanese empire, adding the tumultuous experiences of those from […] (Link to online store) | |
Modern Korean Literature — An Anthology 1908-65 The sixth book in Kegan Paul International’s “Korean Culture Series”, this volume contains thirty stories that have been selected on the basis of historical interest and literary worth, each representing a monumental moment in the history of Korean Literature. The ten stories in the first part share the common theme of the Korean experience of […] (Link to online store) LKL Review | |
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. […] (Link to online store) | |
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 […] (Link to online store) LKL Review | |
On the Eve of the Uprising and Other Stories from Colonial Korea Collected here are translations into English of six classic stories from colonial Korea (1910-1945) as well as the time of liberation (1945-1948). Each piece takes a different perspective on a defining process in Korean history—the colonization and modernization under Japanese rule. The volume demonstrates the rich variety of registers, settings, styles, and thematic concerns that […] (Link to online store) | |
A Moment’s Grace: Stories from Korea in Transition A Moment’s Grace presents short stories that depict the core of Korea’s modernization, from Liberation in 1945 to the Seoul Olympics in 1988. The stories here provide a view of the process through the eyes of ordinary people as they were affected by the historical and social forces that formed modern Korea. A separate background […] (Link to online store) | |
Questioning Minds Available for the first time in English, the ten short stories by modern Korean women collected here touch in one way or another on issues related to gender and kinship politics. All of the protagonists are women who face personal crises or defining moments in their lives as gender-marked beings in a Confucian, patriarchal Korean […] (Link to online store) | |
The Red Room Publisher description: Modern Korean fiction is to a large extent a literature of witness to the historic upheavals of twentieth-century Korea. Often inspired by their own experiences, contemporary writers continue to show us how individual Koreans have been traumatized by wartime violence—whether the uprooting of whole families from the ancestral home, life on the road […] (Link to online store) | |
Modern Korean Drama: An Anthology From the publisher’s website: Carefully selected and represented, the plays in this collection showcase both the fantastic and the realistic innovations of Korean dramatists during a time of rapid social and historical change. Stretching from 1962 to 2004, these seven works tackle major subjects, such as the close of the Choson dynasty and the aftermath […] (Link to online store) | |
Land of Exile: Contemporary Korean Fiction (expanded edition) From the publisher’s website: An anthology of contemporary Korean fiction including: “The Wife and Children”; “The Post Horse Curse”; “Mountains”; “Kapitan Ri”; “The Winter”; and “A Dream of Good Fortune.” LKL adds: the collection contains the following stories: Ch’ae Man-Sik: The Wife and Children (1948) Kim Dong-ni: The Post Horse Curse (1948) Hwang Sun-won: Mountains […] (Link to online store) | |
Modern Korean Fiction: An Anthology To represent the past century of Korean fiction, this definitive collection extends beyond familiar writers, challenges cultural norms, and crosses political borders. By including stories from neglected female, North Korean, and wolbuk writers (those who migrated to the North after 1945 and whose works were widely banned in South Korea) and by bringing politically engaged […] (Link to online store) | |
Korean Short Stories: A Collection from North Korea A collection of short stories from North Korea, originally published in Pyongyang in 1986: History of Iron (1967) – Pyon Hui Gun Happiness (1963) – Sok Yun Gi Ogi (1961) – Chon Se Bong Fellow Travellers (1960) – Kim Byong Hun Everyone in Position! (1974) – Om Dan Ung Unfinished Sculpture (post 1980) – Ko […] (Link to online store) | |
The Voice of the Governor General and Other Stories of Modern Korea From the publisher’s website: From the children of a dwarf whose house is torn down by the government to a young man selling his blood for money, the first-person narrators of the stories collected in The Voice of the Governor-General and Other Stories of Modern Korea take us into the heart of turbulent twentieth-century Korean […] (Link to online store) | |
Unspoken Voices: Selected Short Stories by Korean Women Writers The stories in this collection are written by twelve Korean women writers whose experience, insight, and writing skill make them truly representative of Korean fiction at its best. “The Rooster” is a comical revelation of an old man who accepts the truth that Man and Nature revolve around the same immutable natural law. In “The […] (Link to online store) | |
A Ready-Made Life: Early Masters of Modern Korean Fiction A Ready Made Life is the first volume of early modern Korean fiction to appear in English in the U.S. Written between 1921 and 1943, the sixteen stories are an excellent introduction to the riches of modern Korean fiction. They reveal a variety of settings, voices, styles, and thematic concerns, and the best of them, […] (Link to online store) | |
The Golden Phoenix A collection of seven short stories providing a picture of Korean family life in the 1940s to the 1990s. Their themes include family and community ties, respect for tradition, survival in the face of repeated national disasters, and wrenching social upheaval. The collection contains the following stories: Ch’oe Yun: The Flower with Thirteen Fragrances Kim […] (Link to online store) | |
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 […] (Link to online store) | |
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 […] (Link to online store) | |
The Star and Other Korean Short Stories Eight stories by leading contemporary writers of Korea providing deeply moving insights into the human condition. They reflect a common concern with the social realities of the 1980s, with sadness and triumph emerging as unifying themes. The source of this humanity, as these stories strongly reveal, lies in powerful family bonds and a deep nostalgia […] (Link to online store) | |
The Snowy Road and Other Stories The Korean War and its aftermath serve as the backdrop for the six selections showcased in this collection offering the reader a rarely-glimpsed view of Korean life. Each of the authors represented here has been the recipient of the prestigious Korean People’s Literary Award . Their work focuses on ordinary Korean people and the impact […] (Link to online store) | |
Reunion so far away: a collection of contemporary Korean fiction According to WorldCat the contents of this volume are Korean short stories, translated into English, from the 70’s and 80’s which have previously appeared in the Korea Journal, as follows: Crow / Yi Tʼae-jun — Letters from Okinawa / Kim Jeong Han — Hye-ja’s snow flowers / Cheon Seung-se — Chinatown / Oh Jung Hee […] | |
Words of Farewell: Stories by Three Korean Women Writers The universal topics of life, death, love, hate, sex, loss of innocence, and other themes, are explored in fiction by 3 Korean writers. LKL adds: the collection contains the following stories: Kang Sŏk-gyŏng: A Room in the Woods (1985) Kang Sŏk-gyŏng: Days and Dreams (1983) Kim Chi-wŏn: A Certain Beginning Kim Chi-wŏn: Lullaby Oh Jung-Hee: […] (Link to online store) | |
Postwar Korean Short Stories: An Anthology Originally published by Seoul National University Press in 1974 Includes the following stories Kim Dong-ni: Father and son Oh Sang-won: A respite Chang Yong-hak: Poems of John the Baptist Son Chang-sop: Walking in the snow Sŏnu Hŭi: One way Sŏ Ki-wŏn: The uncharted map Pak Yong-jun: The last parting Hwang Sun-won: Time for You and […] (Link to online store) | |
Home-Coming and Other Korean Short Stories Contains the following stories: Hong Song-won: A boy in search of rest tr Sol Sun-bong Kim Seung-ok: Good bargain tr Yi Yong-gol, Sister Janice Hilburn Kim Seung-ok: Operation tr Yi Yong-gol, Sister Janice Hilburn Kim Seung-ok: Record of a journey to Mujin tr Kevin O’Rourke Kim Seung-ok: Seoul, 1964, Winter tr Marshall R. Pihl Seo […] (Link to online store) | |
A Respite and other Korean short stories Contains the following stories: Chang Yong-hak: Poems of John the Baptist Chŏn Kwang-yong : Driver’s assistant Chŏn Kwang-yong : Kapitan Ri Kim Song-han: Badby Nam Jung-hyun: Chaos Oh Sang-won: A respite Son Chang-sop: Walking in the snow Yi Ho-ch’ŏl: The sultriness of a cold evening Yi Ho-ch’ŏl: Torn flesh (Link to online store) | |
Early spring, mid-summer and other Korean short stories Contains the following stories Han Sung-won: Cave Jeon Sang-guk: Wings that will carry us both Kim Won-il: Spirit of the darkness / Soul of Darkness Mun Sun-tae: Sound of the gong Pak Si-jong: Ten minutes to seven Yi Mun-yol: Early spring, mid-summer Yu Chae-yong: Relationship Yu Hyon-jong: D.M.Z. (Link to online store) | |
One Way and Other Korean Short Stories Contains the stories: Ch’oe In-hun: Christmas Carol Ch’oe In-hun: The end of the highway / End of the Road Sŏnu Hŭi: One way Sŏnu Hŭi: Spark of life Sŏnu Hŭi: The colonel and his friends Sŏnu Hŭi: The mirror Sŏnu Hŭi: The story of a peculiar pain Sŏnu Hŭi: The terrorist Sŏnu Hŭi: Thoughts of […] (Link to online store) | |
The unenlightened and other Korean short stories Contains the following short stories An Su-gil: The green chrysanthemum tr Chong In-sop Ch’ae Man-Sik: My Innocent Uncle / My Idiot Uncle tr Yi Kyong-sik Hyeon Jin-geon: The death of my grandmother tr Adrian Buzo Kim Yi-sok: Tombstone without an inscription tr Mun Sang-duk Kim Yu-jeong: The Visitor tr Suh Ji-moon Kye Yong-muk: Adada the […] (Link to online store) | |
Hospital Room 205 and Other Korean Short Stories Contains the following stories: Choe Cheong-hui: Hospital room 205 tr Edward D Rockstein Choe Cheong-hui: When the cricket chirrs tr Kim Chong-un Hahn Moo-Sook: Shadow tr Richard Rutt Hahn Moo-Sook: The Rock tr Chung Chong-hwa Han Malsook: Mr. Kim, the bohemian minstrel tr Richard Rutt Im Og-in: The new life tr Sol Sun-bong Kang Kyŏng-ae: […] (Link to online store) | |
The Road to Sampo and Other Korean Short Stories Contains the following stories: Hwang Sok-yong: The Road to Sampo Lee Byeng-ju: The wind and landscape of Yenang Ch’oe In-ho: Another Man’s Room Cho Se-hui: The Spiny Fish entering my net Cho Se-hui: On the footbridge Cho Hae-il: Iron masks Shin Sang-ung: Pyeon’s Death Yun Hŭng-gil: Group beating Kim Joo-young: The moon-welcoming flower (Link to online store) | |
Two travelers and other Korean short stories Contains the following stories: Ch’oe Illam: The color of mugwort Ha Keun-chan: The spring song Ha Keun-chan: The Suffering of Two Generations / Ill-fated father and son Ha Keun-chan: The white paper beard Kwon Tae-ung: The hunchback of Seoul O Yu-gwon: Two travelers Pak Yŏng-suk: Eroica Symphony Sŏ Ki-wŏn: Half-Holiday Song Pyong-su: Debris (Link to online store) | |
The Drizzle and Other Korean Short Stories Hwang Sun-won’s stories depict various emotional experiences of brief moments of human life in an outstandingly elegant style. The elegance, however, is not the characterizing quality of his style alone. We find it in his description of scenes and momentary feelings of characters as well as in his presentation of themes that range from the […] (Link to online store) | |
The Cruel City and Other Korean Short Stories Contains the stories: Choe Cheong-hui: Chomnye tr Genell Y Poitras Choe Cheong-hui: Round and Round the Pagoda tr Genell Y Poitras Choe Cheong-hui: The Ritual at the Well tr Genell Y Poitras Hwang Sun-won: The Moon and the Crab’s Legs tr Edward W Poitras Pak Yong-jun: The Touch of Life tr Choe Yong Yi Ch’ŏng-jun: […] (Link to online store) | |
Loess Valley and Other Korean Short Stories Contains the following stories Kim Dong-ni: Loess Valley Kim Dong-ni: The Shaman Painting / Picture of a Shaman Sorceress Kim Dong-ni: The Rock Kim Dong-ni: Two Reservists Kim Dong-ni: Tŭngsin-bul Kim Dong-ni: Cry of the magpie Oh Young-Soo: Seaside Village Oh Young-Soo: Wild Grapes Oh Young-Soo: Uncle Soldier Oh Young-Soo: Adolescence Oh Young-Soo: Nami and […] (Link to online store) | |
Ten Korean Short Stories Ten Korean Short Stories samples two generations of Korean short stories, bringing to life the first faltering steps of an ancient land entering the modern age, evoking in truly memorable fashion the spirit that stir the hearts of her people. Here is the pain and anguish of people oppressed by the conqueror, the tragedy of […] (Link to online store) | |
A Washed-out Dream Contains exactly the same stories and translations as Ten Korean Short Stories, with the addition of an eleventh, Ha Keun-chan’s The White Paper Beard. However, you may find the other publication easier to track down. The White Paper Beard is available in the collection Two Travellers – though that’s pretty hard to track down too. […] (Link to online store) | |
Meetings and Farewells: Modern Korean Stories Contains the following stories: Cho Sŏn-jak : The Wall Hwang Sun-won: Retreat Kim Dong-in: The Post Horse Kim Dong-ni: The Rock Kim Seung-ok: A Cup of Coffee Kim Seung-ok: Seoul, 1964, Winter Kim Yu-jeong: The Camellias Oh Young-Soo: Echoes Yi Ho-ch’ŏl: Wearing Thin Yi Hyo-seok: When the Buckwheat Blooms Yi Mun-gu: The Tale of Kim […] (Link to online store) | |
Modern Korean Short Stories Contains the following stories Ch’oe In-hun: Laughter (1966) tr Lee Sang-ok Hahn Moo-Sook: The Angel tr Chung Chong-wha Hwang Sok-yong: The Road to Sampo (1973) tr Kim Uchang Hyeon Jin-geon: The Fire tr Kathryn Kisray Kang Shin-jae: The Young Zelkova Tree (1960) tr Shin Hyun-song Kim Dong-in: Red Mountain: A Doctor’s Memoir / The Red […] (Link to online store) | |
Modern Far Eastern Stories Publisher description: This anthology of carefully-selected modern stories offers the reader a glimpse into Far Eastern literature that has hitherto been largely unexplored. These stories by contemporary writers, which have been translated by specialists who mostly are or were faculty members of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, reveal the social […] (Link to online store) | |
Korean Short Stories Contains the following stories: Bare Hills (Kim Dong-in) Adada, the Idiot (Kye Yong-Muk) At the Time When the Buckwheat Blooms (Yi Hyo-Seok) The Third Human Type (An Su-gil) The Echo (O Yong-Su) Silent Parallel (Choi Bum-So) Illusion (Park Kyung-ni) Picture of a Sorceress (Kim Dong-ni) (Link to online store) | |
Flowers of Fire: Twentieth-century Korean Stories Contains the following stories: Hyeon Jin-geon: The Fire Kim Dong-in: Potatoes / Sweet Potato Yi Hyo-seok: When the Buckwheat Blooms Yi Sang: Wings Kim Dong-ni: The Shaman Painting Yŏm Sang-sŏp: The last moment. Hwang Sun-won: Cranes Son Chang-sop: Rainy Days An Su-gil: A third kind of man. Ch’oe So-hae: Point. Sŏnu Hŭi: Flowers of fire. […] (Link to online store) | |
Virtuous Women – Three Classic Korean Novels Contains the following classics: A nine cloud dream by Kim Man-jung The true history of Queen Inhyŏn The song of a faithful wife, Ch’un-hyang (Link to online store) | |
Plays from Korea No further information available. WorldCat lists it, but without giving any details of its contents. LTI Korea suggests it might contain one or more plays by Yu Chi-jin. The volume appears to be for sale (presumably as an eBook) from this source. Amazon US is currently listing a second-hand copy. (Link to online store) | |
Collected Short Stories from Korea According to Charles Montgomery, this is the second compilation of Korean translated fiction. The collection includes the following stories An Su-gil: Annals of a Ranch Choe Cheong-hui: Chomnye Choi Tae-ung: Blood Phlegm Chu Yo-seop: Mama and the Boarder Chun Young-Taik: The Cow Chun Pi-Sook: Home-coming Hahn Moo-Sook: Halo around the Moon Kim Song-Han: Coming Home […] (Link to online store) | |
Modern Short Stories from Korea The full text of this collection is now available online on Brother Anthony’s website. Charles Montgomery’s review provides the following information: “Ten of its 20 stories focus on “love and marriage,” and the rest are characterized as “social stories.” Most demonstrate a kind of depth and lack of didacticism that would soon almost vanish from […] (Link to online store) | |
Folk Tales from Korea From the publisher’s website: Folk Tales from Korea is a fun way to access to the Korean ethos. Enjoy these folk tales handed down through the generations and you will gain a better understanding of the Korean people. You will most certainly recognize the Confucius influence on people’s lives. “These 99 examples are as various as they are enjoyable, some […] (Link to online store) | |
Tales from Korea According to Worthpoint, “17 editions [were] published between 1934 and 1963 in English”. WorldCat has the 1934 edition being self-published, with subsequent versions being published by a range of houses. Difficult to obtain nowadays, though Amazon US is currently listing a copy of the 1946 edition with a price reflecting its rarity. Copies are kept […] (Link to online store) |
We think the above list is pretty comprehensive as at March 2021. Help keep this resource complete and up-to-date by letting us know of Korean fiction titles in English translation that aren’t listed above.