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 […]
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Selected publications
- Yun Ko-eun: Table for One: Stories tr Lizzie Buehler, Columbia University Press 2022
- Ksenia Chizhova: Kinship Novels of Early Modern Korea: Between Genealogical Time and the Domestic Everyday, Columbia University Press 2021
- Park Sinae: The Korean Vernacular Story: Telling Tales of Contemporary Choson in Sinographic Writing, Columbia University Press 2020
- Na Man-gap: The Diary of 1636: The Second Manchu Invasion of Korea tr George Kallander, Columbia University Press 2020
- Paek Nam-nyong: Friend tr Immanuel Kim, Columbia University Press 2020
- Trad / anon: The Tale of Cho Ung tr Sookja Cho, Columbia University Press 2018
- Yi Tae-jun: Dust and other stories tr Janet Poole, Columbia University Press 2018
- Anthology: Premodern Korean Literary Prose: An Anthology ed Michael J. Pettid, Gregory N. Evon, Chan E. Park, Columbia University Press 2018
- Chae Man-sik: Sunset: A Ch’ae Manshik Reader tr Bruce Fulton, Ju-chan Fulton, Columbia University Press 2017
- Yi Mun-yol: Meeting with my brother tr Chang Yoosup, Heinz Insu Fenkl, Columbia University Press 2017
- JaHyun Kim Haboush: The Great East Asian War and the Birth of the Korean Nation, Columbia University Press 2016
- Janet Poole: When the Future Disappears: The Modernist Imagination in Late Colonial Korea, Columbia University Press 2014
- Oh Jung-hee: River of Fire and Other Stories tr Bruce Fulton, Ju-chan Fulton, Columbia University Press 2012
- Theodore Hughes: Literature and Film in Cold War South Korea: Freedom’s Frontier, Columbia University Press 2012
- Kim Sok-pom: The Curious Tale of Mandogi’s Ghost tr Cindi Textor, Columbia University Press 2010
- Darcy Paquet: New Korean Cinema: Breaking the Waves, Columbia University Press 2010
- Hwang Sun-won: Lost Souls: Stories tr Bruce Fulton, Ju-chan Fulton, Columbia University Press 2009
- Anthology: Modern Korean Drama: An Anthology ed Richard Nichols, Columbia University Press 2009
- Yi Tae-jun: Eastern Sentiments tr Janet Poole, Columbia University Press 2009
- Park Wan-suh: Who Ate Up All the Shinga? tr Stephen Epstein, Yu Young-nan, Columbia University Press 2009
- Anthology: Epistolary Korea: Letters in the Communicative Space of the Choson, 1392-1910 ed JaHyun Kim Haboush, Columbia University Press 2009
- Choe Yun: There a Petal Silently Falls: 3 stories tr Bruce Fulton, Ju-chan Fulton, Columbia University Press 2008
- Kim Sowol: Azaleas: A Book of Poems tr David R McCann, Columbia University Press 2007
- Marcus Noland, Stephan Haggard: Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform, Columbia University Press 2007
- Anthology: Modern Korean Fiction: An Anthology ed Bruce Fulton, Youngmin Kwon, Columbia University Press 2005
- Anthology: The Columbia Anthology of Modern Korean Poetry ed David McCann, Columbia University Press 2004
- Anthology: The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Korean Poetry ed Peter H. Lee, Columbia University Press 2002
- JaHyun Kim Haboush: The Confucian Kingship in Korea: Yongjo and the Politics of Sagacity, Columbia University Press 2001
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Upcoming literature and fiction titles in 2020 [updated]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Park Wan-suh’s Shinga reviewed in FT
The Weekend FT reviews Park Wan-suh's book "Who Ate Up All the Shinga?" "Lyrical … Gripping". The full review can be found here. #