Non-Korean speakers will now have easier access to the Paleolithic-era archaeological findings in Korea with the publication of an English-language book on research related to the field. The National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage, affiliated with the Cultural Heritage Administration, has published the “Dictionary of Korean Archaeology–The Paleolithic,” an English-language version of th...

Diaspora literature will be an ‘important asset’ as Korea becomes multicultural society

With the novel “Kim Ji-young, Born in 1982” set to be adapted for the big screen, the book’s sales have seen a significant bump in sales. According to Kyobo Bookstore, the novel took the No. 10 spot on its best-seller list for the third week of September, jumping 22 spots. The bookstore said sales volume increased by almost three times. Women in their 20s and 30s accounted for 60.9 percent of p...

Kim Sa-in, head of Literature Translation Institute of Korea, stresses importance of cultivating young literary translators of quality

Veteran photojournalist offers readers rare look into restricted areas along the border

“About Marriage: the 357-day honeymoon” is a collection of writings by a Christian couple who went on a 357-day-long honeymoon to places like Yanbian, Cambodia and India. Like Japanese female writer Kaori Ekuni’s famous novel “Between Calm and Passion-Rosso,” “About Marriage” comes in two separate books, one written by the wife, Lee Sa-rang, and the other by the husband, Chung Chae-hun. Very dif...

Han So-jin’s “In Praise of Death” seems equipped with the enticing elements of a best-seller: a femme-fatale artist misunderstood by her generation and a tragic affair with a married man. Unfortunately, whether the novel lives up to its potential is as elusive as the unfulfilled love story. Which brings us to the next point: misdirected hatred toward the rest of Korean womankind, save for the he...

“Instead of imitating another nation, the Swedes made an unrivaled achievement of their own -- creating a strong society for the people.”

Publishers choose the books to put out on bookstore shelves, hoping that some will buy and perhaps read them. Yet, many of them go unnoticed among the countless books that are released every day. This is much more the case with translated materials. The odds are very low that an American would read Korean literature. The book fair runs through Sunday. For more information, visit http://sibf.or....

Kim Jong-gil passed away in 2017 at the age of 92. He was professor emeritus at the Korea University English literature department, and in the 1990s we met and discussed translation of poetry from Korean into English. He encouraged me to translate not only the message, but also rhythm. It was not an easy task. He gently persuaded me to try harder. He was my senior. I still remember all his word...

Author of ‘White Chrysanthemum’ talks about debut novel on victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery

Literary translator and professor Kim Wook-dong asserted in his recently published article that the English version of the novel “The Vegetarian” has a significant number of mistranslations. In his article published online on March 30, Kim wrote that “The Vegetarian,” a winning novel of the 2016 Man Booker International Prize, contains many more mistranslations than what “one would expect from a...

Lee Sung-nack, a board member at the Kansong Art and Culture Foundation, has released a new book that attempts to explain how portraits created in the Joseon era depicted their models in a realistic way. Lee, 80, worked as a dermatologist and professor before he got a Ph.D. in art history at Myongji University in 2014. Paintings before the Joseon era had tended to portray people, mostly of king...

‘When people ask whether I am liberal or conservative, I tell them that I am an artist,’ said Muhn Baum-gong, also known as BG Muhn, an artist and professor at Georgetown University, during a press conference in Seoul on Wednesday to promote his latest publication “Pyongyang Art: The Uncovering the Complex Layers of Chosonhwa.” Dispelling any possible suspicions concerning his ideological orient...

Poet Choi Young-mi, who revealed her experience of being groped by an unnamed senior poet through her poem, on Monday reaffirmed sexual harassment allegations made against renowned poet Ko Un, who recently denied the allegations. In a statement uploaded on Facebook on Sunday, Choi said, “The statements related to the poem ‘Monster’ are facts. I will reveal the details further, when there is an o...