Korean Archives - Page 4 of 13

The Nine Cloud Dream by Kim Man-jung, translated with an introduction and notes by Heinz Insu Fenkl [in Booklist]

28 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

The warning comes early: “New readers are advised that this introduction makes certain details of the plot explicit.” For audiences adamant about discovering narratives autonomously, skipping the first track is recommended – but only with the intention of returning to the beginning upon book’s end. Professor/translator/writer...

Love for Imperfect Things: How to Be Kind and Forgiving Toward Yourself and Others by Haemin Sunim, translated by Deborah Smith and Haemin Sunim [in Booklist]

09 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Korean, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

He’s been called “Twitter Monk” and “mega-Monk” for his million-plus followers. That his Berkeley/Harvard Divinity Master’s/Princeton PhD-pedigree plus seven years professor-ing at Hampshire College led him to become a world-famous Buddhist monk seems an unlikely path. Yet his success only spreads with Imperfect, his follow-up to...

b, Book, and Me by Kim Sagwa, translated by Sunhee Jeong [in Booklist]

23 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Although set in a coastal suburb outside Seoul, the cycle of neglect by stressed or careless adults can and does happen anywhere. In such an all-too-familiarly indifferent environment, lauded Korean writer Kim Sagwa (Mina, 2018) introduces three misfits: two teen girls and a socially-outcast,...

Booklist Backlist: Fictional Worlds, Real Meals [in Booklist]

16 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Arab, Arab American, Black/African American, Canadian, Cuban, Cuban American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Iranian, Iranian American, Japanese, Korean, Latina/o/x, Lebanese, Lebanese American, Lists, Nonethnic-specific, Persian, Persian American, Repost, Southeast Asian American, Translation, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American

Yeah, sure: Proust and his madeleine-dipped-in-tea set the barometer for toothsome leitmotifs. I admit to the possibility that my academic indoctrination in his long, long musings made me quite the hungry reader. Or maybe I’m just always greedy for nourishment, with preferences in the belly...

Almost American Girl by Robin Ha [in Booklist]

12 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Korean, Korean American, Memoir, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW “The End of the World as I Know It” – Robin Ha’s first chapter heading – happened when she was 14. As a student in 1995 in Seoul, Korea, Ha was mostly a typical teenager, enjoying close friendships, studying hard, and obsessed with reading...

Banned Book Club by Hyun Sook Kim with Ryan Estrada, illustrated by Hyung-Ju Ko [in Booklist]

06 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Korean, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Busan-based wife-and-husband team Hyun Sook Kim and Ryan Estrada mine Kim’s young adult experiences to expose a chilling period of recent Korean history so antithetical to the globally addictive entertainment of K-dramas and K-pop currently synonymous with South Korea. In 1983, Hyun Sook is a...

Best World Literature 2019 [in Library Journal]

02 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Chinese, European, Fiction, French, Japanese, Korean, Lists, Repost, South American, Syrian, Translation

For the second year, I got to read along with two fabulously erudite co-horts – my Library Journal editor Barbara Hoffert and fellow LJ reviewer Lawrence Olszewski – to compile this 10-title list of remarkable, unforgettable, best-of translated world literature. We all read voraciously throughout the year,...

Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, translated by Janet Hong [in Booklist]

25 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Korean, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Few historical tragedies compare to the hell-on-earth endured by the Japanese military’s so-called “comfort women,” a grossly abused term for mostly young girls kidnapped during WWII into sexual slavery. For Lee Ok-sun, one of Korea’s few survivors, her “service” included 30–40 men daily in...

In Celebration of Women in Translation Month: Asian Women Authors — Part II [in The Booklist Reader]

30 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Fiction, Japanese, Korean, Lists, Repost, Short Stories, Thai, Translation

This is the second of a two-part series. Click here for Part I. Last week, we shared a baker’s dozen of titles by Asian women writers, made accessible by dedicated, invaluable translators who continuously, miraculously enable anglophone readers in discovering, enjoying, and sharing books from around...

Five More to Go: Edwidge Danticat’s Everything Inside [in The Booklist Reader]

28 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Caribbean American, Chinese American, Fiction, Haitian American, Indian American, Japanese, Korean, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian American, Translation

Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat Following The Art of Death (2017), a reflection on her mother’s passing, Danticat focuses this haunting eight-story collection on, well, death. Looming death becomes a bargaining chip in “Dosas,” when an ex-husband begs his ex-wife to help save her kidnapped replacement....

In Celebration of Women in Translation Month: Asian Women Authors — Part I [in The Booklist Reader]

23 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Lists, Repost, Short Stories, Thai, Translation

This is the first of a two-part series. Part II will publish on Friday, August 30, 2019. Before I can name even a single author or title, I must express my constantly regenerating, overflowing gratitude to translators who enable readers anywhere and everywhere to literally experience the...

Five More to Go: Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police [in The Booklist Reader]

13 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Japanese, Korean, Korean American, Lists, Repost, Translation

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa and translated by Stephen Snyder Without names, these people, this island, could be anyone, anywhere. As fantastical as the premise of her latest anglophoned novel seems, Yoko Ogawa (The Housekeeper and the Professor, 2009) intends exactly that universality. Initially, small things disappeared...

Five More to Go: Sok-yong Hwang’s At Dusk [in The Booklist Reader]

17 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Lists, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

At Dusk by Sok-yong Hwang and translated by Sora Kim-Russell In just over a year, three Sok-yong Hwang titles – Familiar Things (2018), Princess Bari (2019), and this novel – have arrived stateside, each indelibly, adroitly anglophoned by Seoul-based Sora Kim-Russell. Lauded by Nobel Prize laureate Kenzaburō Ōe as “undoubtedly the most powerful voice...

13 Fall Faves, Speed-Dating Style [in The Booklist Reader]

03 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Black/African American, Caribbean American, Cuban, Cuban American, Fiction, Indian American, Iranian, Iranian American, Japanese, Korean, Latina/o/x, Lists, Memoir, Nonfiction, Persian American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian, South Asian American, Translation, Turkish, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

Oh, good gracious! I can’t stand it: soooo many amazing books and my aging eyeballs just can’t keep up! Last week at ALA Annual, I got to “Read ‘n’ Rave,” but I had such an embarrassingly overflowing list, the buzzer went off (uh-oh!), and I couldn’t...

At Dusk by Sok-yong Hwang, translated by Sora Kim-Russell [in Booklist]

17 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW In just over a year, three Sok-yong Hwang titles – Familiar Things (2018), Princess Bari (2019), and this novel – have arrived Stateside, each indelibly, adroitly anglophoned by Seoul-based Sora Kim-Russell. Lauded by Nobelist Kenzaburō Ōe as “undoubtedly the most powerful voice of the...

Electrifying Reads from the Other Side of the World: Seven Korean Thrillers in Translation [in The Booklist Reader]

30 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Lists, Repost, Translation

Despite my Korean heritage, I don’t read the language well enough to enjoy Korea’s latest, greatest titles. Thankfully, notable Korean-to-English translators, especially Sora Kim-Russell, Deborah Smith, and Chi-Young Kim, enable all Anglophone audiences to discover – and for many of us, become ardent fans of...

Song of Arirang by Kim San and Nym Wales, edited by George O. Totten and Dongyoun Hwang [in Booklist]

09 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Korean, Nonfiction, Repost

He’s had almost two dozen names, yet his story was forgotten for 40 years. More recently, despite their violent 20th-century histories, four countries – China, Japan, and his native Korea, now cleaved into North and South – all claim him as a local hero. Perhaps best...

Five More to Go: Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise [in The Booklist Reader]

10 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British Asian, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese, Korean, Korean American, Lists, Pakistani, Repost, South Asian, Translation

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi “That whole thing about fiction not being the truth is a lie,” one character admonishes another in Susan Choi’s fifth (and finest) novel. Returning to the multilayered teacher-student power struggles that were seared into My Education (2013), Trust Exercise immediately puts...

Flowers of Mold by Ha Seong-nan, translated by Janet Hong [in Booklist]

25 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Joining a growing cohort of notable Korean imports, Ha Seong-nan’s dazzling, vaguely intertwined collection of 10 stories is poised for Western acclaim. In “Flowers of Doom,” a loner painstakingly studies his neighbors by sifting through their trash – “Garbage never lies” – eventually deciphering...

Five More to Go: Readymade Bodhisattva, edited by Sunyoung Park and Sang Joon Park [in The Booklist Reader]

20 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Australian, Chinese American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Japanese American, Korean, Repost, Short Stories, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Readymade Bodhisattva: The Kaya Anthology of South Korean Science Fiction, edited by Sunyoung Park and Sang Joon Park Tenacious indie nonprofit Kaya Press launches its Magpie Series (which showcases Korean titles in translation that encapsulate “a reflexive picture of Korea and the breakneck speed of its...

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