On Wednesday November 2nd, Cheon Myeong–kwan (Homecoming, Modern Family) Family won 10,000,00 won at the Ku Sang annual literature award (With the assistance of Asia Publishers). I was lucky enough to not only be invited (I had created the international judging panel), but to present the check as well. A lot of awards were given,…
On Saturday night, the 20th of December, the first annual K-Blog Awards were held in Itaewon, and going head to head with the excellent Subject, Object, Verb, KTLIT won first place and the nice plaque you see over there to the right. Obviously, the category was ‘literature.’^^ The host/organizer of the event was the Korea…
She’s all out of bubblegum! And if you don’t get that reference and live in the United States you should immediately surrender your citizenship and move to some place worse… like, any place Putin might be in charge.^^ Krys Lee is the author of the amazing and often amazingly dark Drifting House, which KTLit reviewed…
Some good news for a friend of KtLIT, Maija Rhee Devine (whose website is here) who KtLIT recently saw twice in Seoul, once at the 10 Magazine Book Club and once and the Hanguk University of Foreign Studies. At both occasions, Ms Rhee Devine rocked the house in the discussion of her book The Voices…
A bit more good news on the awards front as Krys Lee’s Drifting House has been long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Story Award. Launched in 2005, the award is presented each year to an original collection of stories judged to be the most accomplished. The award’s aim is to reward an individual author’s commitment…
1) First the news that she won. Shin Kyung-sook, author of the international bestseller Please Look After Mom, has been awarded the Royal Salute “Mark of Respect” award. The award was one I didn’t even know existed (and I found the following information on the excellent Subject, Object, Verb): “Every year, Pernod Ricard Korea selects someone…
Some important words of wisdom.^^ I discuss Shin Kyung-sook’s victory in the Man Asia Literary Prize, long-listing for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, what it means for Korean literature, and the Amazon Ripple Effect (trademark pending!^^). https://ktlit.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/120320_CharlesM.mp3 for download or iPod
UPDATED: I’ve been tracking these numbers over the weekend and the new numbers are added in below. Additions are italicized. As part of my TBS eFM appearances on 1013 Mainstreet, next week I’m going to talk about Social Media and how they can be useful popularizing Korean literature, but I think I’ve already seen on…
Shin Kyung-sook’s Please Look After Mother makes the short list and Murakami does not! Shin becomes the first Korean to make the list! Razia Iqba, the announcing judge, called the decision “pleasurable and daunting.” The books were so good they broke with tradition and upped the list to 7 books from 6. Four of the…
Really good news, as it may open the door for other prizes to think about Korean translations as prizeworthy. KTLIT has talked about the failure of Korean lit to get into these contests here, here, and here. But the epic commercial success of Shin Kyung-sook’s Please Look After Mom was apparently too massive to ignore.…