Lee finally decided the work was done last year and “I am the Master of My Fate and Captain of My Soul,” a collection of his father’s articles and their translations, was released in June. The English title comes from the last line of Lee Hi-chang’s favorite poem by William Ernest Henley. The translations were done by Lee Hi-chang‘s children, making the book more memorable for the Lee family. “T...

The prolonged battle against the COVID-19 outbreak is changing life patterns, including how we read and digest books. Public libraries have shut down with some offering delivery-only services, or activating “e-bookshelf” sections online as an alternative way out during and after the crisis. Efforts for new reading experiences seem to have gained overall success so far. According to the Ministry ...

“Literature does a good job of adding emotional information to foster empathy, giving you portals to connect other narratives with yours,” said Yoon. “The ultimate goal of this book for people unfamiliar with the history is to foster empathy. We are all living the same history in the end. Nothing is ever irrelevant.” Among the myriad of violence, Yoon tries to show that an underlying encompassin...

Columnist for The Korea Herald and the Elders Press of Korea, Kim Myong-sik has released “All in the Same Boat,” a compilation of 140 columns that he wrote for the Elders Press of Korea from March 2017 to July 2020. This is a second compilation of his columns. “Jongno Square,” containing three year‘s worth of columns, was published in 2013. In journalism for more than 40 years, Kim has served a...

In 2019, Lee won the Positive Organization Intervention Challenge Finalist Award from the International Positive Psychology Association, a global professional organization for thousands of psychological experts from 70 countries. She is now co-chair of the American Psychological Association‘s international section of Division 17. The author stresses that one can find their signature within thems...

The book, written in collaboration with the late Edward W. Wagner (1924-2001), a professor and founder of the Korean studies program at Harvard University, provides significant information about chaekgeori based on an examination of more than 150 images from numerous collections both in Korea and abroad. The book is the result of more than 30 years of devotion to the genre on the author’s part. ...

Author Kim Bong-gon tweeted on Tuesday that he would return publisher Munhak Dongne’s Young Writer Award and apologized for the trouble he has caused. Kim, who gained popularity for his autofiction -- or fictionalized autobiography -- regarding LGBTQ culture faced criticism when one person, “disexual,” tweeted how her private messages with Kim had been used verbatim in his award-winning short st...

The new victim introduced himself as Young-woo from Kim’s debut work of fiction, “Summer, Speed.’ “I am Young-woo from author Kim Bong-gon’s debut title piece ‘Summer, Speed.’ I am a real person,” tweeted one user. “I am once again showing in public space that exploitation under the name of autofiction for personal greed is still harming real people.” The person claimed he was outed by Kim thro...

“I thought that executives should know all the employees,” Ahn said. “So, at the end of the year, I wrote letters to all of my employees. Everyone received different letters. I started preparing this after work in July. In the process, I realized that I did not have many interactions with some of my staff. Then I would have a tea time or meeting with them to get to know them better. This employee...

“The last feature is about different media and how the way that people consume musical content has changed,” Lee said. “As an editor, it was interesting to find out about auditions and how foreigners are interested in becoming a K-pop star.” Koreana was launched as an English magazine in 1987 by the Korea Foundation. The magazine is currently being published in 10 different languages including F...

Korea National University of Cultural Heritage’s traditional arts and crafts professor Sim Yeon-ok has published a book, titled “2,000 Years of Korean Embroidery,” which offers historical analyses on the technical development of Korean embroidery, in collaboration with her students. Established in 2000, the Korea National University of Cultural Heritage is run by the Cultural Heritage Administra...

Concerns of the publishing industry and local offline bookstore owners are rising, as Interpark Songin, a retailer to small and medium-sized bookstores, announced Tuesday that it has filed for court receivership due to mounting losses. In 2017, e-commerce platform operator Interpark acquired a 56.2 percent stake in the book retailer, which at the time was under court receivership, for 4 billion ...

Hwang Sok-yong, one of South Korea‘s best known writers, said he would rather bring back the Lotus Prize for Literature than win a Nobel prize, during a press conference held Tuesday for the release of his latest novel “Three Generations of Railworkers.” The Lotus Prize for Literature was an award organized by the Afro-Asian Writers‘ Association that was presented annually to African and Asian a...

New York-based Frances Cha is a former travel and culture editor for CNN in Seoul. She grew up in the US, Hong Kong and Korea. By Song Seung-hyun ( ssh@heraldcorp.com )

First English book offering comprehensive understanding of Korea’s modern and contemporary art published globally