Last year was an amazing one for Korean literature in translation, with plenty of lively titles published. 2022 looks for the moment like it’s going to be a little quieter, but new publications sometimes pop out of nowhere, so this list of anticipated books for this year is almost bound to be proved incomplete. There … [Read More]
Publisher: Columbia University Press
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Selected publications
- Victor Cha: The Black Box: Demystifying the Study of Korean Unification and North Korea 2024
- Seungsook Moon: Civic Activism in South Korea: The Intertwining of Democracy and Neoliberalism 2024
- Thae Yong-Ho: Passcode to the Third Floor: An Insider’s Account of Life Among North Korea’s Political Elite tr Robert Lauler 2024
- Yun Ko-eun: Table for One: Stories tr Lizzie Buehler 2024
- Ch'oe Myong-ik: Patterns of the Heart and Other Stories tr Janet Poole 2024
- Scott Snyder: The United States-South Korea Alliance: Why It May Fail and Why It Must Not 2023
- Satoru Hashimoto: Afterlives of Letters: The Transnational Origins of Modern Literature in China, Japan, and Korea 2023
- Ramon Pacheco Pardo: South Korea’s Grand Strategy: Making Its Own Destiny 2023
- Sixiang Wang: Boundless Winds of Empire: Rhetoric and Ritual in Early Chosŏn Diplomacy with Ming China 2023
- Ksenia Chizhova: Kinship Novels of Early Modern Korea: Between Genealogical Time and the Domestic Everyday 2021
- Yafeng Xia, Zhihua Shen: A Misunderstood Friendship: Mao Zedong, Kim Il-sung, and Sino-North Korean Relations, 1949-1976: Revised Edition 2020
- Park Sinae: The Korean Vernacular Story: Telling Tales of Contemporary Choson in Sinographic Writing 2020
- Na Man-gap: The Diary of 1636: The Second Manchu Invasion of Korea tr George Kallander 2020
- Paek Nam-nyong: Friend tr Immanuel Kim 2020
- Samuel F Wells Jr: Fearing the Worst: How Korea Transformed the Cold War 2019
- Sandra Fahy: Dying for Rights: Putting North Korea’s Human Rights Abuses on the Record 2019
- Cheehyung Harrison Kim: Heroes and Toilers: Work as Life in Postwar North Korea, 1953–1961 2018
- Trad / anon: The Tale of Cho Ung tr Sookja Cho 2018
- Yi Tae-jun: Dust and other stories tr Janet Poole 2018
- Christina Yi: Colonizing Language: Cultural Production and Language Politics in Modern Japan and Korea 2018
- Scott Snyder: South Korea at the Crossroads: Autonomy and Alliance in an Era of Rival Powers 2018
- Anthology: Premodern Korean Literary Prose: An Anthology ed Michael J. Pettid, Gregory N. Evon, Chan E. Park 2018
- Chae Man-sik: Sunset: A Ch’ae Manshik Reader tr Bruce Fulton, Ju-chan Fulton 2017
- Yi Mun-yol: Meeting with my brother tr Chang Yoosup, Heinz Insu Fenkl 2017
- Cho O-hyun: For Nirvana: 108 Zen Sijo Poems tr Heinz Insu Fenkl 2016
- JaHyun Kim Haboush: The Great East Asian War and the Birth of the Korean Nation 2016
- Hyun Ok Park: The Capitalist Unconscious: From Korean Unification to Transnational Korea 2015
- Sandra Fahy: Marching Through Suffering: Loss and Survival in North Korea 2015
- Janet Poole: When the Future Disappears: The Modernist Imagination in Late Colonial Korea 2014
- Suk-young Kim: DMZ Crossing: Performing Emotional Citizenship Along the Korean Border 2014
- Danielle L Chubb: Contentious Activism and Inter-Korean Relations 2014
- JaHyun Kim Haboush, Kang Hang, Kenneth Robinson: A Korean War Captive in Japan, 1597–1600: The Writings of Kang Hang tr JaHyun Kim Haboush, Kenneth R Robinson 2013
- Oh Jung-hee: River of Fire and Other Stories tr Bruce Fulton, Ju-chan Fulton 2012
- Theodore Hughes: Literature and Film in Cold War South Korea: Freedom’s Frontier 2012
- Patrick McEachern: Inside the Red Box: North Korea’s Post-totalitarian Politics 2010
- Kim Sok-pom: The Curious Tale of Mandogi’s Ghost tr Cindi Textor 2010
- Darcy Paquet: New Korean Cinema: Breaking the Waves 2010
- Hwang Sun-won: Lost Souls: Stories tr Bruce Fulton, Ju-chan Fulton 2009
- Anthology: Modern Korean Drama: An Anthology ed Richard Nichols 2009
- Yi Tae-jun: Eastern Sentiments tr Janet Poole 2009
- Park Wan-suh: Who Ate Up All the Shinga? tr Stephen Epstein, Yu Young-nan 2009
- Kim Yong, Suk-young Kim: Long Road Home: Testimony of a North Korean Camp Survivor 2009
- Anthology: Epistolary Korea: Letters in the Communicative Space of the Choson, 1392-1910 ed JaHyun Kim Haboush 2009
- Choe Yun: There a Petal Silently Falls: 3 stories tr Bruce Fulton, Ju-chan Fulton 2008
- Kim Sowol: Azaleas: A Book of Poems tr David R McCann 2007
- Marcus Noland, Stephan Haggard: Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform 2007
- Anthology: Modern Korean Fiction: An Anthology ed Bruce Fulton, Youngmin Kwon 2005
- Anthology: The Columbia Anthology of Modern Korean Poetry ed David McCann 2004
- Edward M Graham: Reforming Korea’s Industrial Conglomerates 2003
- Anthology: The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Korean Poetry ed Peter H. Lee 2002
- Andre Schmid: Korea Between Empires, 1895-1919 2002
- JaHyun Kim Haboush: The Confucian Kingship in Korea: Yongjo and the Politics of Sagacity 2001
- Anthology: Sources of Korean Tradition: Volume Two: From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries ed Peter H. Lee, Yôngho Ch`oe, Wm. Theodore De Bary, Hugh Kang 2001
- Anthology: Early Korean Literature: Selections and Introductions ed David R. McCann 2000
- Anthology: Sources of Korean Tradition: Volume One: From Early Times Through the Sixteenth Century ed Peter H. Lee and Wm. Theodore de Bary 1996
- Anthology: Sourcebook of Korean Civilization: Volume 2: From the Seventeenth Century to the Modern Period ed Peter H Lee 1996
- Anthology: Sourcebook of Korean Civilization: Volume 1: From Early Times to the Sixteenth Century ed Peter H Lee 1993
- Michael C Kalton, Yi Hwang: To Become a Sage: The Ten Diagrams on Sage Learning 1988
Eighteen non-fiction titles we’re hoping to enjoy this year [updated]
![Thumbnail for post: Eighteen non-fiction titles we’re hoping to enjoy this year [updated]](https://i0.wp.com/londonkoreanlinks.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/non-fiction.jpg?resize=120%2C120&ssl=1)
Here are some of the books we’re looking forward to in 2021. For the first time in one of these posts we’re flagging the indicative cost of the titles listed here. For me, I have a psychological barrier at around £30: a book has to be offering something pretty special for me to be prepared … [Read More]
A look back at our 2020 reading diary
Like many readers, we started the year with good intention of blitzing through the pile of new titles that were promised for the coming months, as well as making inroads into the backlog. And we genuinely got off to a good start with a string of fun K-thrillers, some of them new, some not: The … [Read More]
Review: Na Man’gap – the Diary of 1636
Na Man’gap’s Diary of 1636, as George Kallander explains in his informative introduction, is the longest known private account of the second Manchu invasion of Korea. Na (1592 – 1642) was a senior scholar-official who was with the King and court inside Namhansanseong – he was in charge of military rations – throughout the siege … [Read More]
Book review: Paek Nam Nyong – Friend
When faced with a translation of a book written by a North Korean, based on past experiences you might expect material that’s hostile to the regime. Texts that have been rendered into English tend to be either defector testimonies or an occasional collection of short stories or poems by a dissident writer that have apparently … [Read More]
Upcoming literature and fiction titles in 2020 [updated]
![Thumbnail for post: Upcoming literature and fiction titles in 2020 [updated]](https://i0.wp.com/londonkoreanlinks.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/upcoming-fiction.jpg?resize=120%2C120&ssl=1)
I’m hoping that, as in previous years, by posting my own list of upcoming literature and fiction titles – pulled together by some targeted searching on Amazon and a trawl through Barbara J Zitwer’s website – I might persuade others to supplement it from their own specialist knowledge. Whatever happens, books inevitably fall through the … [Read More]
New and upcoming literature and fiction titles for 2018
From classic Joseon dynasty ghost stories, via historical fiction set in the reign of Queen Min, to the latest in translated literature, we take a look at some of the books to look forward to in 2018. Our look at non-fiction titles can be found here. Contemporary Korean literature in translation Hwang Sok-yong’s novel At … [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]
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]
Who Ate Up All The Shinga – a critical essay by Alice Bennell
Alice Bennell, UK winner of last year’s Korean Literature Translation Institute essay contest on “There a Petal Silently Falls”, contributes her entry for this year’s competition. Who Ate Up All the Shinga is an autobiographical novel chronicling the early life of the author, Park Wan-Suh. The Japanese occupation of Korea, and events leading up to … [Read More]
Struggling with all the Shinga
Well, I just finished this year's essay book (Park Wan-suh’s Who ate all the Shinga?) and it's even harder than last year. Nothing to get your teeth into. And that wasn’t meant to be a pun. Last year’s text at least gave you a challenge in trying to understand it. This year’s adds very little … [Read More]
The 2010 Essay Contest – Who ate up all the Shinga?
Last year, the Korean Literature Translation Institute launched an essay competition to encourage people to read Korean Literature in translation. The title chosen was Ch’oe Yun’s There a Petal Silently Falls – a novella which I personally struggled with. In my own feeble submission, I suggested that a colonial period novel would have been a … [Read More]
Petal essay contest Salon des Refusés 3
Peter Corbishley offers his entry into the “There a Petal Silently Falls” essay competition. A Korean novella – a human tragedy It is unnerving to have images from a half-recollected film1 play through a reading of There a Petal Silently Falls.2 Yet that sense of disorientation evocatively models how the girl’s bewildered spirit-awareness3 interweaves, recalls … [Read More]
Petal essay contest Salon des Refusés 2
The LKL Editor contributes his own unsuccessful entry into the “There a Petal Silently Falls” essay contest. Ghosts of Kwangju Ch’oe Yun’s There a petal silently falls is an interesting choice for a first Korean literature essay contest. Elusive in content, obscure in characterisation and insubstantial in length, it encourages a discussion not about the … [Read More]
Petal essay contest Salon des Refusés 1
Earlier this year the Korean Literature Translation Institute sponsored an essay competition based on Ch’oe Yun’s There a Petal Silently Falls. Now that the finalists have been announced, Michael Rank is the first to offer his submission for publication on the pages of LKL. The Kwangju (Gwangju) massacre of 1980 has been called the most … [Read More]
Troubles with the Petal
12 Sep: The only way I’m going to be able write anything on There a Petal is to leave it to the last minute and rely on the deadline pressure for inspiration. Having now read it three times I have no angle on it at all. 10 Oct: Really struggling to write 2,000 words on … [Read More]