Deborah Smith’s latest Bae Suah translation, Recitation, is now available in bookshops. This month you have the opportunity to hear some of the challenges of translating it, courtesy of SOAS’s Centre for Translation Studies: Close to a State of Linguistic Weightlessness: On Translating Bae Suah Dr Deborah Smith (Korean-English translator, Publisher/Editor at Tilted Axis Press) … [Read More]
Books and literature (page 18)
2017 Korean Literature Nights
The KCC’s first Korean Literature Night of 2017 features another of Hwang Sun-mi’s short novels. And this year, the nights don’t clash with the film screenings. 2017 Korean Literature Nights The Korean Literature Night (KLN) is a monthly discussion group, held on the last Wednesday evening of the month (apart from the first meeting), that … [Read More]
New and upcoming non-fiction titles for 2017
As a follow up to my post on literature and fiction titles coming up in 2017 (now updated twice), here are some of the upcoming non-fiction publications that I’ll be looking out for. There are of course many others: simply do an advanced search on Amazon with keyword “Korea” and publication year 2017 and you may … [Read More]
New and upcoming literature and fiction titles for 2017 [updated]
![Thumbnail for post: New and upcoming literature and fiction titles for 2017 [updated]](https://londonkoreanlinks.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/2017-titles-500x455-1-120x120.jpg)
As I’ve been looking back at the books of 2016 I realise that there are a few recent publications I missed. Here are some of them, along with some that are advertised to be out this year. I do wish there was a decent source to tell you what’s new or coming up soon. Publishers’ … [Read More]
Choigate and Park Geun-hye’s censorship of the arts – contd
A couple more links relating to censorship under Park Geun-hye, which will be updated as news breaks. First, a re-post of the pdf purporting to be the blacklist of 9,473 names, first posted here. 10 Jan 2017: Via Br Anthony comes the “appalling news … that [Park] personally gave orders that the two most important … [Read More]
Book review: Hwang Jungeun — One Hundred Shadows
Hwang Jungeun: One Hundred Shadows Translated by Jung Yewon Tilted Axis Press, 2016, 147pp Original published as 百의 그림자, Minumsa, 2010 The 2009 Yongsan apartment building disaster barely registered in the news media outside of Korea. But in its way it registered domestically much as the Sewol disaster did, acting as a rallying point against an … [Read More]
A look back at some of the books of 2016
To cut to the chase, here are my two books of the year for 2016. For more detail, read on. Literature in translation The world of translated fiction seems to have been dominated by two names this year, one Korean and one British. The Korean name of course is Han Kang. Just as The Vegetarian … [Read More]
Book review: Without You, There Is No Us
Suki Kim: Without You, There Is No Us. Rider / Penguin Random House, 2015, 291pp I always come to books about the DPRK with a certain amount of reluctance, because there are far too many of them and I wonder what each successive book will have to say that is new. I approached this one … [Read More]
Book review: Park Wan-suh — Lonesome You
Park Wan-suh: Lonesome You Translated by Elizabeth Haejin Yoon Dalkey Archive, 2015, 252pp Originally published as 너무도 쓸쓸한 당신, Seoul, 1998. I came to Lonesome You with fairly neutral expectations. I had read Who Ate All the Shinga, the story of Park’s childhood in the late 1940s and through the war years. It was an interesting … [Read More]
Book Review: The Story of Hong Gildong
Anon (attr Heo Kyun): The Story of Hong Gildong Translated with an introduction and notes by Minsoo Kang Penguin, 2016, 100pp Penguin has done us a favour by bringing us this new translation of a classic Korean tale, along with a useful introduction and notes. Hong Gildong is often described as the Korean Robin Hood … [Read More]
An interview with Jung Yewon
There’s a good interview with Jung Yewon, translator of Hwang Jung-eun’s One Hundred Shadows, in The London Magazine. [T]he image of misty rain, “slender as spider’s silk,” is something that has stayed with me as I read, translated, and reread the book, with the ambience of a dream it spun. [Read More]
Choigate, censorship and the arts
At any other time the presence of a demonstrator outside the KCC – and outside the opening screening of the London Korean Film Festival – protesting about artistic censorship that is said to have taken place during the current KCC director’s stint at the National Gugak Centre would have been prominent news. But choreographer Jung … [Read More]
Event news: Hwang Jungeun book launch at London Review Bookshop
Tilted Axis Press is launching its first Korean title on 20 October at the London Review Bookshop. Hwang Jungeun will be present to discuss her work. Tickets via Eventbrite. You can buy a copy of the book before then via the Tilted Axis Press website. Hwang Jungeun: One Hundred Shadows London Review Bookshop | 14 … [Read More]
Book review: Hwang Sun-won — Lost Souls
Hwang Sun-won: Lost Souls Translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton Columbia University Press 2010, 354pp Having quite enjoyed two of Hwang Sun-won’s fuller-length stories – Trees on a Slope and Descendants of Cain – though without necessarily being enamoured of the characters of the stories they inhabited, I was looking forward to tackling Lost Souls, … [Read More]
Inspector O in NYT feature
There’s a nice feature on James Church and his Inspector O series in the NYT. Well worth a read, as are the books themselves. Here’s a good quote from the article: “If you want to understand North Korea then you need to read Inspector O,” said Michael Madden, who has spent years studying the North … [Read More]
Krys Lee featured in the Guardian
There’s a really good interview with Krys Lee (Drifting House, How I Became a North Korean) in The Guardian: “The acclaimed short story writer talks about her debut novel, trying to understand her violent father and moving back from the US to South Korea”. The novel is available on Amazon from 18 August. Krys Lee … [Read More]