London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

LKL book database logo

Selected publications

Book Review: Hwang Sunmi — The Hen who Dreamed she could Fly

Hwang Sun-mi: The Hen who dreamed she could fly Translated by Kim Chi-young; illustrations by Nomoco Oneworld Publications, 2014, 124pp First published as 마당을 나온 암탉, 2000 A brief fable that can delight children and adults alike, the story touches on themes of motherly love, discrimination, otherness, and belonging, while also touching on and accepting … [Read More]

Book Review: Gong Ji-young — Our Happy Time

Gong Ji-young: Our Happy Time Translated by Sora Kim-Russell Short Books, 2014, 269pp. Originally published as 우리들의 행복한 시간, 2005 Our Happy Time is not the obvious title for a novel in which a three-times attempted suicide goes reluctantly to visit a convicted murderer awaiting execution on death row. But strangely, as the relationship between … [Read More]

The Korean Novels on Screen Programme at the KCC

The KCC, in conjunction with the British Council, has announced its programme of films inspired by Korean literature. Two and a half of the films have their original stories available in English translation. The ones available in English are The Road to Sampo and Leafie. The half-film is The Scarlet Letter, which is based both … [Read More]

Waterstones stocks up on Hwang Sunmi

Seen at the Waterstones in Canary Wharf today: a pile of Hwang Sunmi’s The Hen who Dreamed She Could Fly. Nice to see that they’re including it in the buy one, get one half price promotion. My neighbourhood bookstore at home rang me today to tell me my own copy had arrived, so I’ll be … [Read More]

You’ve seen the film, now read the book

The Korean Film Council recently publicised on its website the new “Book to Film” initiative aimed at bringing together the film and the publishing industries. Of course, the practice adapting a book for the big screen is almost as old as the movie industry itself, and some of South Korea’s most successful movies have been … [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]

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]

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]

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 Fulton1. Having read The Guest (2002), and having watched and … [Read More]

1970s: the missing decade in Korean film?

Newcomers to Korean film can sometimes get the impression that Korean cinema started with Shiri. Indeed, one contributor to the recent Korean Film Blogathon claimed “Korea’s cinema was virtually non-existing until the new millennium”. Not a sentiment with which I strongly agree. While the last decade has certainly seen more than its fair share of … [Read More]