This will be a short post, but I wanted to let people know about this wonderful new source for free Korean literature e-books (short stories and novellas). Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI) has just made available (for free) 20 works of Korean fiction. The stories are by some of the giants of early modern Korean literature, including Yi Sang, Kim Nam-Cheon, and Chae Man-Sik. The works span from the early 1920s to the late 1940s. Many of these are very well done, new translations.
The titles can be found and downloaded here.
For the tech savvy among my readers, they have also put out an iphone app, which can be found on itunes.
As usual, our friend at KTLIT has a great piece up about it, which can be found at his site.
Lastly, I just wanted to mention an article in the Korea Times last week:
Korean literature sees opening for growth
The piece is a round table discussion about the current status and future of Korea literature. The panelists included Charles from KTLIT and current Royal Asiatic Society-Korea Branch President Brother Anthony of Taize.
Enjoy your free literature.
Showing posts with label korea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label korea. Show all posts
Monday, January 13, 2014
Monday, November 25, 2013
Korean Lit in the News
I know I haven't posted in a while, but I've come across a few things that I wanted to share.
Some interesting Korean literature related articles
Korean Lit Comes to America
Why Say Goodbye: Reterritorializing Working-class Literature in Contemporary Korea
From Pyongyang to Mars: Sci-fi, Genre and Literary Value in North Korea
In other news, the great people at Dalkey Archive Press have begun releasing their Korean Literature series. They are releasing lots of new and great material.
Library of Korean Literature
The Uses of Uncertainty: Dalkey Archive's "Library of Korea" Series
Creating a Library of Korean Literature
Korean author Kim, Young-ha's Op-Ed piece in the NYT
Life Inside a Playstation
Currently reading
Garuda by Yi Mun-yŏl (이문열)
Hope to get up another Korean literature related post in the next few weeks.
As always, questions and comments always welcome.
Some interesting Korean literature related articles
Korean Lit Comes to America
Why Say Goodbye: Reterritorializing Working-class Literature in Contemporary Korea
From Pyongyang to Mars: Sci-fi, Genre and Literary Value in North Korea
In other news, the great people at Dalkey Archive Press have begun releasing their Korean Literature series. They are releasing lots of new and great material.
Library of Korean Literature
The Uses of Uncertainty: Dalkey Archive's "Library of Korea" Series
Creating a Library of Korean Literature
Korean author Kim, Young-ha's Op-Ed piece in the NYT
Life Inside a Playstation
Currently reading
Garuda by Yi Mun-yŏl (이문열)
Hope to get up another Korean literature related post in the next few weeks.
As always, questions and comments always welcome.
Monday, February 25, 2013
More Korean Literature Recommendations
As my first Korean literature post has been one of the most viewed, I have decided to do a follow-up post and recommend a few more titles.
For those of you interested in reading more Korean literature, I would like to recommend a great series of novellas and short works called The Portable Library of Korean Literature by Jimoondang Publishing Company and KLTI (Korean Literature Translation Institute). Each book contains a selection of a few short works by a selected author. Once again, we have Charles at KTLIT to thank for a full list (and reviews) of the series here.
Two of the three recommendations in my previous post can be found in this series. Each book usually contains at least two, but sometimes three works. My descriptions below are only of the title stories for each work, but I do mention the names of the other stories included in each. Here are five more that I would recommend:
Rust by Yang Gui-ja (양귀자)
This story relates a day in the life of an advertising salesman in the late 1980's in Seoul.
Also included: Swamp
Chinatown by Oh Jung-hee (오정희)
A story centering around a young girl and her experiences living in Incheon just after the Korean War. I really enjoyed the second story The Wayfarer as well.
Two others also included: The Wayfarer and The Release
The Last of Hanako by Ch'oi Yun (최윤)
Set in Venice, the story of a man on a business trip in search of a long-lost friend. By clicking the author's name, in addition to a short biography, you will also find her story The Flower with Thirteen Fragrances.
Also included: The Grey Snowman
House of Idols by Choi In-hun (최인훈)
A mysterious young man with a seemingly secret past begins to disrupt the atmosphere of a group of writers at their favorite hangout. One in the group makes it his mission to discover the truth.
Also included: End of the Road and Imprisoned
Deep Blue Night by Choi In-ho (최인호)
Another foreign setting, this time California, follow two Korean ex-pats on a road trip, Kerouac-style.
Also included: The Poplar Tree
For those of you who are looking for something larger, but are still relatively new to Korean Literature, I would recommend the below anthology.
Modern Korean Fiction: An Anthology Edited by Bruce Fulton & Youngmin Kwon
Included in this anthology are stories by many of the most important authors in Korean literature from the 20th century. A good introduction to Korean fiction that displays its diversity over the past century. A few of the stories here that I enjoyed are:
The Wings (Yi, Sang) - Same story mentioned in the previous post.
The Crow (Yi, Tae-jun) - A story of unrequited love.
Mother's Hitching Post (Park, Wan-suh) - One of the most famous modern Korean authors.
Another Man's Room (Choi, In-ho) - Same author as the above mentioned Deep Blue Night.
I plan to read The Dwarf by Cho, Se-hui pretty soon. I've read two stories from it already that were very good, so I'm looking forward to reading it.
Hope you find these recommendations helpful and that they have given a little more of a selection for those interested in Korean literature.
As always, feel free to leave a comment.
For those of you interested in reading more Korean literature, I would like to recommend a great series of novellas and short works called The Portable Library of Korean Literature by Jimoondang Publishing Company and KLTI (Korean Literature Translation Institute). Each book contains a selection of a few short works by a selected author. Once again, we have Charles at KTLIT to thank for a full list (and reviews) of the series here.
Two of the three recommendations in my previous post can be found in this series. Each book usually contains at least two, but sometimes three works. My descriptions below are only of the title stories for each work, but I do mention the names of the other stories included in each. Here are five more that I would recommend:
Rust by Yang Gui-ja (양귀자)
This story relates a day in the life of an advertising salesman in the late 1980's in Seoul.
Also included: Swamp
Chinatown by Oh Jung-hee (오정희)
A story centering around a young girl and her experiences living in Incheon just after the Korean War. I really enjoyed the second story The Wayfarer as well.
Two others also included: The Wayfarer and The Release
The Last of Hanako by Ch'oi Yun (최윤)
Set in Venice, the story of a man on a business trip in search of a long-lost friend. By clicking the author's name, in addition to a short biography, you will also find her story The Flower with Thirteen Fragrances.
Also included: The Grey Snowman
House of Idols by Choi In-hun (최인훈)
A mysterious young man with a seemingly secret past begins to disrupt the atmosphere of a group of writers at their favorite hangout. One in the group makes it his mission to discover the truth.
Also included: End of the Road and Imprisoned
Deep Blue Night by Choi In-ho (최인호)
Another foreign setting, this time California, follow two Korean ex-pats on a road trip, Kerouac-style.
Also included: The Poplar Tree
For those of you who are looking for something larger, but are still relatively new to Korean Literature, I would recommend the below anthology.
Modern Korean Fiction: An Anthology Edited by Bruce Fulton & Youngmin Kwon
Included in this anthology are stories by many of the most important authors in Korean literature from the 20th century. A good introduction to Korean fiction that displays its diversity over the past century. A few of the stories here that I enjoyed are:
The Wings (Yi, Sang) - Same story mentioned in the previous post.
The Crow (Yi, Tae-jun) - A story of unrequited love.
Mother's Hitching Post (Park, Wan-suh) - One of the most famous modern Korean authors.
Another Man's Room (Choi, In-ho) - Same author as the above mentioned Deep Blue Night.
I plan to read The Dwarf by Cho, Se-hui pretty soon. I've read two stories from it already that were very good, so I'm looking forward to reading it.
Hope you find these recommendations helpful and that they have given a little more of a selection for those interested in Korean literature.
As always, feel free to leave a comment.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Korean Literature Recommendations
In this post I would like to make a few Korean literature recommendations. While more and more is being written about this topic, it is still sometimes a little difficult to know where to get started. I am not an expert by any means, for that I will direct you to Charles Montgomery of KTLIT. His site offers the most information about K-Lit (in translation) I have seen in one place, including reviews, news and author interviews. I would, nonetheless, still like to suggest a few selections.
As someone who tries to avoid reading reviews of books before I read them, I am not writing reviews here. I will however give a very short description of each work and have provided links where you can read a little more about each author and work if you wish.
Recommendations:
"Photo Shop Murder" by Young-ha Kim (김영하)
Korean noir detective fiction and the most recently written of my recommendations. You can find a review here.
The General's Beard (장군의 수염) by Yi Oryong / Lee Oyoung (이어령)
More dectective fiction: A man is dead. Two men are investigating, one a detective, the other a writer. Was it murder or suicide? Who will uncover the truth first, and why it happened?
"The Wings" (날개) by Yi Sang (이상)
The oldest of my selections and the story of the possibly insightful rambalings of a tomented husband (think Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground). A rich text, lending itself to various literary interpretations. Charles of KTLIT has a full review here.
All three recommendations are novellas or (longer) short fiction. Both "Photo Shop Murder" and "The Wings" are exteremely inexpensive and come with additional short stories. The General's Beard can also be purchased online, but the link I provided is to the complete story, from the translator's own site.
I hope that people enjoy these recommendations. If you have already read these or would also like to recommend something, please feel free to leave a comment. Additonally, if you liked these and would like me to make more recommendations, just ask, as I may add to this list in the future.
As someone who tries to avoid reading reviews of books before I read them, I am not writing reviews here. I will however give a very short description of each work and have provided links where you can read a little more about each author and work if you wish.
Recommendations:
"Photo Shop Murder" by Young-ha Kim (김영하)
Korean noir detective fiction and the most recently written of my recommendations. You can find a review here.
The General's Beard (장군의 수염) by Yi Oryong / Lee Oyoung (이어령)
More dectective fiction: A man is dead. Two men are investigating, one a detective, the other a writer. Was it murder or suicide? Who will uncover the truth first, and why it happened?
"The Wings" (날개) by Yi Sang (이상)
The oldest of my selections and the story of the possibly insightful rambalings of a tomented husband (think Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground). A rich text, lending itself to various literary interpretations. Charles of KTLIT has a full review here.
All three recommendations are novellas or (longer) short fiction. Both "Photo Shop Murder" and "The Wings" are exteremely inexpensive and come with additional short stories. The General's Beard can also be purchased online, but the link I provided is to the complete story, from the translator's own site.
I hope that people enjoy these recommendations. If you have already read these or would also like to recommend something, please feel free to leave a comment. Additonally, if you liked these and would like me to make more recommendations, just ask, as I may add to this list in the future.
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