Lee See-woo: Life on the Edge of the DMZ Global Oriental, 2008 Translated by Kim Myung-hee I’ve been dipping in and out of this fascinating though often overly complex book by peace activist Lee Si-Woo. It’s sometimes hard to tell whether the English translation – for the most part unfussy – is sometimes too literal, … [Read More]
Category: Non-fiction (page 9)
Seeing Beyond Seoul: Travels in South Korea
Jennifer Barclay, author of Meeting Mr Kim: Or How I Went to Korea and Learned to Love Kimchi, will be talking about some of her travels at the Korean Cultural Centre this month. Jennifer is a contributor to London Korean Links, and there should be several other LKL contributors present in the audience as well. … [Read More]
Samsung whistleblower’s new book
Former Samsung insider takes on Korean conglomerate http://bit.ly/cdV30I. Andrew Salmon reports for CNN on the new book “Think Samsung” by Kim Yong-cheol. Only available in Korean so far. via @JamesTurnbull. [Read More]
The Seoul Book of Everything
A new guide book, featuring content from some well-known foreigners in Seoul: The Seoul Book of Everything. http://bit.ly/coILfY #. But how will it compare with Robert Koehler’s guide? [Read More]
Call for papers: Directory of World Cinema: Korea (Intellect Press: 2011)
Please find below the call for papers for the forthcoming Directory of World Cinema: Korea, to be published by Intellect Press in 2011. This is an exciting project. Intellect’s Directory of World Cinema: Japan has just recently been published. Details can be found here: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/books/view-Book,id=4679/ Directory of World Cinema: Korea CALL FOR PAPERS The directory … [Read More]
Brief book review: Dictée – Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Dictée University of California Press, 2001. Originally published 1982. Not all books are easy to read, and it would be a dull world in which all books were. The assessment of whether to continue struggling through a difficult book is tricky: maybe it will all come together in the end – … [Read More]
The Asian Palate partners Asian food with wine
A Korean living in Hong Kong is the only Asian Master of Wine. Her love of wine began in Oxford. Jeannie Cho Lee spent two years sampling dishes and figuring out which wines can stand up to the powerful flavours of oriental cuisine The result is The Asian Palate. Sources: FT | Christie’s. # Links: … [Read More]
Nothing to Envy: it brought tears to the eyes of a jaded cynic
LKL reports from the book launch of Barbara Demick’s Nothing to Envy – Real Lives in North Korea It was a well-informed audience attending Barbara Demick’s book launch at the Royal Festival Hall on Tuesday, many of whom had been to North Korea. As the strains of a Mozart Symphony wafted upstairs from the concert … [Read More]
Book review: Hwang Sun-won – The Descendants of Cain
Hwang Sun-won: The Descendants of Cain Translated by Suh Ji-moon and Julie Pickering East Gate / UNESCO / Routledge 1997. Originally published 1954 Novels set in post-liberation Korea, or during the Korean war, often make uncomfortable reading, particularly those set in the Soviet sphere of influence, and where the story is set in the countryside. … [Read More]
Barbara Demick talks about her book Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea
In her new book Nothing to Envy – Real Lives in North Korea, Barbara Demick uncovers the secrets of the world’s most secretive country, through the stories of six North Koreans. Covering illicit love affairs, party loyalty and crippling poverty, the stories are the result of tenacious investigations and interviews in a country not connected … [Read More]
Michael Breen: The Koreans
With a commendable dose of filial piety appropriate to the subject of his book, Michael Breen dedicates his work to “Mum and Dad”. Having lived in Korea on and off since 1982, maybe some of the national characteristics are rubbing off on him. As one of the well-established “Korea hands”, who has covered events on … [Read More]
Korea Chic: a cosy, western, “How to Spend it” view of Korea
We review a diabolical book with no identifiable readership Raymond Bartlett and Brandon Lee: Korea Chic Editions Didier Millet Pty Ltd, 2009 When Korea is seeking to increase its visibility as a tourist destination, any guidebook must be welcome. This recently published book, however, is not a guidebook. In fact, it is not quite sure … [Read More]
Nineteen Years in South Korea’s Gulag
Suh Sung: Unbroken Spirits – Nineteen Years in South Korea’s Gulag Rowman & Littlefield, 2001 Original Japanese version, (Gokuchû 19 Nen, Nineteen Years in Prison) 1994 We are all familiar with stories reporting the horrors of torture and starvation in North Korean prison camps. What we can forget is that over the past decades South … [Read More]
Bamboo and Blood: Inspector O is back on form
James Church: Bamboo and Blood St Martin’s Press, 2008 After Inspector O’s slightly disappointing second outing, James Church is back on form with the third novel in the series, Bamboo and Blood. In another fast-paced story, set against the backdrop of the North Korean 1997 famine and the US-DPRK talks in Geneva, Inspector O is … [Read More]
Book review: The Reluctant Communist
Charles Robert Jenkins: The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea University of California Press, 2008 “Our choices are what makes us who we are. Nobody knows that better than me.” So ends the autobiography of Charles Robert Jenkins, the only American to spend most of his life in North Korea … [Read More]
Why North Korea is unlikely ever to produce a Solzhenitsyn
Christian Oliver reviews “Long Road Home: Testimony of a North Korean Camp Survivor” in the weekend FT #. He observes: It is not uncommon for South Korean missionaries to meet defectors as soon as they flee into China, and for memoirs by penal camp survivors to end with the authors turning to Christianity. But Kim’s … [Read More]