Most Popular
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[Exclusive] Korean military set to ban iPhones over 'security' concerns
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Korean, Romanian leaders discuss defense tech, nuclear energy
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S. Korea calls on Japan to confront history amid Yasukuni Shrine visit
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Yoon’s jailed mother-in-law excluded from latest parole list
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[Herald Interview] 'Amid aging population, Korea to invite more young professionals from overseas'
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Hybe and Min Hee-jin, CEO of Hybe sublabel Ador, lock horns
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Korea’s homegrown nanosatellite successfully launches into space
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[Pressure points] Leggings in public: Fashion statement or social faux pas?
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Nicaragua shuts down Seoul embassy
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Rocket engine expert, ex-NASA exec to lead Korea's new space agency
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Kim Hoon's 'Harbin' looks at independence fighther An Jung-geun
Recovering from an illness last year, Korean novelist and essayist Kim Hoon, 74, pondered about the rest of his life. One thing he realized was that he could no longer put off writing about independence activist An Jung-geun (1879-1910), which had been on his mind since his college days. “I was busy making ends meet. And more importantly, I didn’t dare write about him,” Kim told reporters during a press conference on Wednesday. Struck by a desperate feeling of
Aug. 4, 2022
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[Book Review] Park Seo-bo's seven decades of artistic practice explored in new English book
"Park Seo-bo: ‘Ecriture’" By Rosa Maria Falvo, Lee Jin-joo Rizzoli New York Painter Park Seo-bo, one of the pioneers of Dansaekhwa, a contemporary art group that emerged in Korea in the 1960s, has emphasized three crucial elements in Dansaekhwa paintings – purposeless action, a repetition exercise in meditation and materiality evolved from the meditation. “Park Seo-bo: ‘Ecriture’” published last month by Rizzoli New York, explores P
July 11, 2022
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[Scholars and their Spaces] Dongchundang -- House vibrant with life, like spring
Although he was born in Jeongneung-dong in Seoul in 1606, Song Jun-gil came from an old Song family based in Eunjin-myeon in Nonsan, South Chungcheong Province, famous for its Eunjin Mireuk statues of Maitreya. He built the Dongchundang house in his clan village of Hoedeok, which has been called “the land of virtuous scholars” since the time of King Taejo of the Goryeo Kingdom, and devoted himself to learning rather than entering the government, and died there. Song has been reco
June 18, 2022
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Young adult novel remembers writer Li Mirok’s life
A Korean Australian writer’s novel for young adults takes inspiration from an educator and independence activist who spent much of his life in exile in the early 1900s. The book, titled “The Young Resistance and Korean Language School,” gives us a look at Li Mirok -- a writer and educator who is perhaps known better in Germany, where he spent rest of his life since 1922. Li published several books in Germany, including the autobiographical novel “The Yalu Flows,”
June 11, 2022
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[Eye interview] Food as the great connector
A young woman, born to a Korean mother and white father, stands in a Korean supermarket chain crying as she looks at the side dishes on display that her late mother used to make for her. It’s the scene that opens Michelle Zauner’s bestselling memoir, “Crying in H Mart,” and one that many Korean Americans will have no difficulty imagining. For Zauner, food formed an unbreakable bond between her and her mother. Her mother made Korean dishes for her Korean-born daughter wh
June 10, 2022
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2022 Seoul International Book Fair returns in full force
The Seoul International Book Fair, the country‘s largest book event, kicks off Wednesday at Coex in southeastern Seoul. The annual book fair will run from Wednesday to Sunday, with a total of 196 companies including 18 foreign companies and 214 speakers expected to join the event. This year’s event takes place after two years of scaled-down editions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the theme of “One Small Step,” talks, exhibitions and events will take place to gauge
May 31, 2022
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Indian novel ‘Tomb of Sand’ wins International Booker Prize
Indian writer Geetanjali Shree and American translator Daisy Rockwell won the International Booker Prize on Thursday for “Tomb of Sand,” a vibrant novel with a boundary-crossing 80-year-old heroine. Originally written in Hindi, it‘s the first book in any Indian language to win the high-profile award, which recognizes fiction from around the world that has been translated into English. The 50,000-pound ($63,000) prize money will be split between New Delhi-based Shree and Ro
May 27, 2022
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‘Shrimp to Whale’: Well-told story of S. Korea’s rise to spotlight
From BTS to Squid Game, to its internationally heralded handling of COVID-19, South Korea is enjoying the spotlight on the global stage. Yet, books on Korea out there often feel stale and outdated. If not tunnel-visioned on the country’s economic success, South Korea is a nation heavily seen through the lens of geopolitics, or a country technically still at war. In his book “Shrimp to Whale: South Korea from the Forgotten War to K-Pop,” Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor of i
May 26, 2022
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Seoul-based Australian academic wins N.S.W. Premier’s Literary Awards
Dan Disney, a professor at Sogang University, has received the N.S.W. Premier’s Award for Poetry for his latest poem collection “accelerations & inertias.” Disney, who has lived in South Korea for 12 years, was given the Kenneth Slessor Award, which comes with a cash prize of 30,000 Australian dollars ($21,000). Published in 2021 by Vagabond Press, the collection “dissects the psychogeography of information, knowledge and lived experience of place and tim
May 19, 2022
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[Book Review] Samsung ex-CEO recalls 'great' chip deal that built Apple empire in memoir
Apple’s ecosystem of a wide array of devices including the iPhone would have remained an elusive dream had Steve Jobs failed to address the memory glitches in iPods in the early 2000s. The idea of iPhone, iPad, iTV and MacBook Air scribbled on Jobs’ whiteboard in December 2004 struck Hwang Chang-gyu, the then-president of semiconductor business at Samsung Electronics, as he was on the verge of a handshake with Jobs in California to replace iPod’s hard disk drives with flash me
May 5, 2022
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‘Ugly Koreans, Ugly Americans’ changes with the times
Since Min Byoung-chul first wrote “Ugly Koreans, Ugly Americans” in 1993 to highlight cultural and behavioral differences between Koreans and Americans, the book has been revised six times. In the latest revision, the well-known English educator said half of the content has changed. “There appears to be increasing global interest about Korea due to Hallyu (Korean wave content) such as ‘Squid Game’ and BTS. Many Koreans are also going out to the world stage,
May 2, 2022
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Web novels poised to become mainstream source for S. Korean drama content
While webtoon-based drama series such as Netflix’s “Hellbound” and “All of Us Are Dead” drew viewers’ attention and brought global success to content creators, web novels are poised to become the next major source for other multimedia content. A web novel is a written work available primarily on the internet. Global streaming platform Disney+ produced its Korean original series by adapting Naver Series’ famous web novel “Sixth Sense Kiss.”
April 13, 2022
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S. Korea to participate in this year's Bogota book fair as honorary guest
South Korea will take part as a guest of honor in the Bogota International Book Fair (FILBO) set to open in Colombia's capital this month to mark the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries, the South Korean culture ministry said Wednesday. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said the country will hold various exhibitions, seminars as well as literary and cultural events under the theme of "togetherness, convivencia" at the fair. Launched in 1988, FILBO is
April 13, 2022
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[Herald Interview] John Cho explores Korean American identity in ‘Troublemaker’
John Cho’s recently released “Troublemaker,” co-written with Sarah Suk, is a coming-of-age story that takes place on the single, infamous night of “Sa-I-Gu,” or April 29, 1992. As the world is changing around him on the first night of the Los Angeles riots that followed the acquittal of four police officers who had brutally beat Rodney King, a Black man, in an incident caught on video, Korean American boy Jordan’s own world -- his central identity -- is expe
April 11, 2022
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Naver Webtoon partners with DC for 3 new series
Naver Webtoon announced Friday that it has expanded its partnership with DC Comics to release three new DC originals as webtoon series -- “Vixen: NYC,” “Red Hood: Outlaws” and “Zatanna & The Ripper,” starting next month. The two companies launched “The Batman: Wayne Family’s Adventure” project series last September, which follows the DC universe and its characters. The project has garnered over 942,612 subscribers and was rated 9.76 poi
April 8, 2022
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Korean novels published overseas win multiple prizes on global stage
The presence of Korean literature is growing widely in the world as local translations have won or been nominated for multiple prizes from literature awards outside of the country. An English translation of Chung Bora's "Cursed Bunny" published by British publisher Honford Star was chosen as one of the six finalists for this year's International Booker Prize announced Thursday. She became the second Korean author to make the shortlist after Han Kang, who achieved the feat in 2016 and 2
April 8, 2022
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Bora Chung’s ‘Cursed Bunny’ short-listed for 2022 International Booker Prize
South Korean novelist Bora Chung’s “Cursed Bunny,” translated by Anton Hur, has been selected as one of six books for the prestigious 2022 International Booker Prize short list, organizers said Thursday. “It’s getting even more unrealistic, but I’m thrilled to even witness that Korean genre literature is recognized this much and loved worldwide,” Chung told The Korea Herald after the announcement. “And personally, I’m very hon
April 7, 2022
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Korean books to watch for this spring
Park Sang-young's queer coming-of-age tale “Love in the Big City” (translated by Anton Hur) is one of two Korean novels longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize. Together with Bora Chung’s ”Cursed Bunny,“ Park‘s debut novel and first book to be translated into English highlights the diversity of contemporary Korean literature. Chung’s short story collection tackles a variety of styles and concepts, from surreal horror and dark fairytales to sci
March 31, 2022
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[Herald Interview] Giving back to Southeast Asia by introducing region’s art, literature to Korea
With South Korea riding high on the wave of its international success in the pop culture arena, ranging from the hugely popular “Squid Game” to children’s book illustrator Suzy Lee winning the prestigious Andersen Awards just last week, a foundation hopes to pay it forward by introducing Koreans to relatively unknown Southeast Asian literature. In pursuit of this goal, the Hansae Yes24 Foundation, established in 2014 and privately funded by Kim Dong-Nyung, chairman of Hansae Y
March 31, 2022
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[Herald Interview] ‘Cursed Bunny’ author Bora Chung on writing from the margins
Like her stories, Bora Chung radiates terse, fierce energy like an electrical cable cut open. On a Thursday morning exactly one week after “Cursed Bunny” -- her collection of 10 short stories translated by Anton Hur -- was announced among the works longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize, Chung told The Korea Herald that she was still in shock. “Suddenly people are mentioning my name in the same sentence with Han Kang and Olga Tokarczuk, and I feel this is surreal
March 30, 2022