Korea is the Market Focus for the London Book Fair 2014, and with the Asia House Festival of Asian Literature coming up next month it’s good that we have two Korea / Asia-related talks at the London Book Fair – one on Translation, with participation from Deborah Smith (@londonkoreanist) and this one, a presentation from … [Read More]
London Book Fair 2014: Korea Market Focus (page 5)
Translation flows in Asia: panel session at the London Book Fair 2013
Korea is the Market Focus for the London Book Fair 2014, and with the Asia House Festival of Asian Literature coming up next month it’s good that we have two Korea / Asia-related talks at the London Book Fair – this panel session with participation from Deborah Smith (@londonkoreanist) and the other a presentation from … [Read More]
Kim Young-ha: Black Flower – an imaginative re-telling of a fascinating byway of Korean history
Kim Young-ha: Black Flower Originally published in Korean as 검은 꽃 in 2003 This edition Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2012, 305pp, Translated by Charles La Shure Black Flower tells the fascinating story of a thousand or so Korean emigrants who sailed from Jemulpo (now Incheon) in 1905 in search of jobs in Mexico, and ended up … [Read More]
Jeonju Film Fest to focus on Kim Young-ha
This is the kind of news I like. This year the program of the Jeonju International Film Festival will include “short films based on Korean writers’ short stories, thereby creating opportunities for good Korean literature to be introduced overseas. The focus this year will be KIM Young-ha. KIM Young-ha’s novel, I have a right to … [Read More]
The London Book Fair Announces Market Focus 2014: Korea
LONDON/SEOUL, UK, 11 December, 2012 — The London Book Fair and The Korean Publishers Association have announced Korea as the Market Focus of The London Book Fair 2014. The launch event at Asia House today was attended by The London Book Fair, The Korean Publishers Association and LBF Market Focus strategic partners, the British Council … [Read More]
Kim Young-ha longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize
It’s nice to see that the book I’m currently reading, Kim Young-ha’s Black Flower (검은 꽃), has been longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. Last year, Shin Kyung-sook’s Please Look After Mother won it. Can Korea make it two years running? At LKL, we loved Kim Young-ha’s Your Republic Is Calling You, and found … [Read More]
Im Kwon-Taek’s Village in the Mist — affairs on an Anonymous Island
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]
KTLit reviews Kim Young-ha’s “Black Flower”
It’s a translation I’ve been waiting for for ages, and finally it’s out. Charles over at KTLit.com has the scoop with a very early review, but I’m not going to look until I’ve read the book myself. Every other book on my reading pile will be pushed aside. This one is top priority. It’s out … [Read More]
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]
Korean authors Shin Kyung-sook and Krys Lee visit Edinburgh Book Fest
We’ve all heard of the Edinburgh International Festival and its fringe; and of the Edinburgh Film Festival. Each year there’s sure to be Korean interest at these events. But this year another festival held at the same time, the Edinburgh Book Festival, together with the World Writers Conference, hosted Korea’s two most famous younger generation … [Read More]
Korean poets perform in London
As part of the South Bank Centre’s Poetry Parnassus, two Korean poets will be appearing later this month in London and elsewhere. The event, part of the Cultural Olympiad, is designed to bring together writers from every Olympic nation for the 2012 celebrations. Representing South Korea is Kim Hye-soon: Kim Hye-soon was one of the … [Read More]
Shin Kyung-sook’s acceptance speech for the Man Asian Literary Prize
What could be more appropriate for Mother’s Day? Shin Kyung-sook’s acceptance speech on winning the Man Asian Literary prize for Please Look After Mother: (via Otherwhere) [Read More]
Shin Kyung-sook on MAN shortlist
Congratulations to Shin Kyung-sook, whose Please Look After Mother (translated by Kim Chi-young) is shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize, announced yesterday: http://t.co/hORsoPB9 (Photo: Korea Herald) Update 8 March 2012: the title has also been included in the longlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2012 – an award established by the Independent newspaper … [Read More]
Festival Film Review: Leafie, a Hen into the Wild
At last year’s LKFF the surprise success was the animation Green Days – which for me was the first Korean animation really to stand comparison with Japan’s Studio Ghibli. This year the story may well be the same, with another animation from a director making his first full-length feature. In a country where animation screenings … [Read More]
A Yi Mun-yol short story in the New Yorker
A Yi Mun-yol short story (An Anonymous Island) is published in The New Yorker — a first! wp.me/p1mFzB-cJ. Via @subjobjverb. Translation is by Heinz Insu Fenkl. Update: LKL article on the short story and Im Kwon-taek’s screen adaptation of it (Village in the Mist – 안개 마을, 1983) can be found here. [Read More]
Shin Kyung-sook’s book roadshow comes to Europe
The Shin Kyung-sook roadshow arrives on mainland Europe. Please Look After Mother is already in its third print run in Spain. http://bit.ly/m7WUBL # [Read More]