Han Su-ok, a young schoolteacher, arrives in an isolated mountain village to take up her first job in an elementary school. As she gets off the bus, the village initially seems deserted, like a ghost town, hemmed in by the high forbidding walls of the surrounding mountains like a prison. You wonder what sort of … [Read More]
Category: Book Reviews (page 9)
Book review: Yi Mun-yol — Our Twisted Hero
Yi Mun-yol: Our Twisted Hero Originally published 1987 Translated by Kevin O’Rourke Available on Kindle (Minumsa, 2012) or hard copy (Hyperion Books, 2001) Moving to the provinces from a school in Seoul in which the social hierarchy was one he had lived with all his life, our twelve-year-old hero Han Pyongt’ae is faced with a … [Read More]
Book review: Michael Gibb — A Slow Walk through Jeong-dong
Michael Gibb: A Slow Walk through Jeong-dong Illustrations by Ah-young Jung Hollym, 2011, 144pp How can one write a whole book about a stroll down a street tucked in behind the Deoksu Palace? How can one spend a whole day there? Well, in part, the clue is in the title – the walk is slow. … [Read More]
The Orphan Master’s Son: best left in the orphanage
Adam Johnson: The Orphan Master’s Son Doubleday, 2012 The publication of The Orphan Master’s Son, the second novel by Adam Johnson, had lucky timing, surfing the wave of interest in the North caused by the death of Kim Jong-il. The newspapers duly lined up to review it to general acclaim, but an early battleground formed: … [Read More]
I’m six pages in to Seopyeonje, and already I’m crying
By contrast to the glacial pace of T’oji, I’m six pages in to Yi Cheong-jun’s Seopyeonje (http://t.co/Z32AGY0p | US: http://t.co/tjQBtaAD) and already I’m crying. [Read More]
I’m one volume in to T’oji, and nothing’s happened yet
Why Park Kyung-ni’s epic novel “Land” is like the long-running BBC radio soap opera “The Archers”. And why someone should create a Reader’s Digest version. [Read More]
Book review: Richard E Kim — The Martyred
Richard E. Kim: The Martyred First published by George Braziller, 1964 Published in Penguin Classics 2011, with introduction by Heinz Insu Fenzl and Preface by Susan Choi. 199 pp Fourteen North Korean priests are rounded up by the communists just before North Korea invades the South in June 1950. Twelve of the priests are shot, … [Read More]
Book Review: Martin Limón — G.I. Bones
Martin Limón: G.I. Bones Soho Crime 2009 G.I. Bones is the sixth in Martin Limón’s excellent series featuring George Sueño and Ernie Bascom, detectives from the US military based in 1970s Seoul. The first in the series, Jade Lady Burning, was published nearly 20 years ago in 1992, but our investigators are still in their … [Read More]
Book review: Land of Scholars (Kang Jae-eun)
The Land of Scholars: Two Thousand Years of Korean Confucianism by Kang Jae-eun (translated from Japanese to Korean by Ha Woo-bong, then from Korean into English by Suzanne Lee) Homa & Sekey Books 2006; original Japanese version published in 2003. 515 pp Students of Korean history, and particularly of the Joseon dynasty, will inevitably at … [Read More]
Ill-Fated Relationship: get your manhwa in English, on the iPhone
When I was in Korea last May I met up with Kim Jin-sung, the man behind online CD merchant Mr Kwang. He told me about his project to bring manhwa, Korean graphic novels, to an English speaking audience. I was expecting something web-based. But with the advent of the iPhone, an app is as good … [Read More]
A review of Makers of Modern Korean Buddhism
Here’s a link to a review of Jin Y Park, ed. Makers of Modern Korean Buddhism on H-Net: a book which has been on my reading pile for far too long. http://bit.ly/o5grgG #. The book’s rather heavy going though… [Read More]
Book review: Walking the Baekdu-Daegan trail
Roger Shepherd & Andrew Douch, with David A Mason: Baekdu Daegan Trail Seoul Selection, 2010, 446pp Korea is a mountainous country. If you google that phrase you will learn that 70% of South Korea’s land mass is designated as upland or mountains. And everyone knows that a lot of Koreans love hiking in the hills. … [Read More]
Book review: Shin Kyung-sook — Please look after Mother
Kyung-sook Shin: Please look after Mother Originally published in Korean as 엄마를 부탁해, 2008 Translated by Chi-Young Kim Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2011, 272pp Can we ever really appreciate who we have in our lives until they are gone? Kyung-Sook Shin’s Please look after Mother looks through the eyes of a family united in trying to … [Read More]
Book review: Chris Springer — North Korea Caught in Time
Chris Springer: North Korea Caught in Time – Images of War and Reconstruction with introductory essay by Balázs Szalontai. Garnet Publishing, 2010 (148pp) In the English-speaking world, the story of the Korean war and its aftermath, if told at all, is told first from the perspective of the US and UN combatants that came to … [Read More]
Book review: Kim Sok-pom — The Curious Tale of Mandogi’s Ghost
Kim Sok-pom: The Curious Tale of Mandogi’s Ghost Translated by Cindi Textor Columbia University Press, 2010 (114pp) Originally published in Japanese, 1970. What seems to be new entrant in the Korean literature in translation market is more complicated than it first seems. The author, Kim Sok-pom, is actually a second-generation zainichi Korean resident in Japan, … [Read More]
Book Review: Hwang Sok-yong – The Old Garden
Hwang Sok-yong: The Old Garden / The Ancient Garden Originally published in 2000 English translation by Jay Oh, Seven Stories Press 2009 / Picador 2010. “More has been expected of Hwang Sok-yong than almost any other Korean writer of the past quarter century,” says Bruce Fulton (1). Having read The Guest (2002), and having watched … [Read More]