For those of you who don’t know, most of my writing has migrated to the Los Angeles Review of Books Korea Blog and Seoul Magazine. Recently Seoul Magazine published my review of Cho Chongnae’s (Jo Jung-rae) “The Human Jungle” in the mighty Seoul Magazine: For some reason they chose to use a graphic of the…
Oh my, … in my last review of Modern Short Stories From Korea the first book of translated Korean modern literature in English I noted that it was naturalistic, non-didactic, and even occasionally funny. So next I picked up Collected Short Stories from Korea (Technically “Volume 1” but so far as I know the only…
Three Voices at Midnight by Shing Sang-ung (Translated by Ahn Juhg-hyo) is an interesting amalgamation of internal stories. It is the story of a three-way love affair (not at all physical) between three men. It is also that relatively rare thing in Korean fiction as story about the Civil War as an actual battle. It…
The Star & Other Korean Short Stories (Unesco Collection of Representative Works), translated by Agnita Tennant is available on Kindle for rent at $16.05 and for purchase at $38.36, which is a bit pricey, but can be had in hardback for as low as $4.69 used (Use this link to find it, as the…
It’s difficult to place Homecoming by Cheon Myeong-Kwan (Asia Publishers) as either a Super-dystopic, after the crash novel or as a rugged individualist story in which hard work is rewarded and sloth discarded in the most horrible way. OK, no it’s not, it’s a super-dystopic view of what would happen in Seoul if the continuing…
Off to Battle at Dawn and The Elephant are both volumes from the ASIA Publishers Bi-Lingual Edition of Korean Fiction, and though they are about different eras and different people, both stories are about the same problem; the way capitalism has marginalized workers in Korea. As usual with the ASIA Publisher books, each of these…
Happy New Year to Everyone – To Raymond Carver, by Kim Yeon-su (Translated by Maya West), is a male version of a very Korean modern fiction approach – a woman’s life (in this case the wife of the narrator) is examined through the conceptions and misconceptions of a husband, and in this examination the state…
NOTE: This is an X-mas “re-release” originally published on November 21, and go ahead and follow KTLIT on twitter here. Christmas Specials, by Kim Ae-ran (translated by Jamie Chang) covers some of the same conceptual territory as Guide to Seoul Cave (here a PDF file) by Kim Mi-wol – the limited spaces – conceptual, psychological,…
Pre-pro-tips: If you like Guide to Seoul Cave you can purchase Kim Mi-wol’s What is Yet to Happen, a cool (if that’s the word) pre-apocalyptic story here. Also, you can follow KTLIT on twitter @ktlit. Of course, the title to Kim Mi-wol’s Guide to Seoul Cave (available thanks to Brother Anthony’s hompi) gives away the point she…
Kim Mi-wol‘s What Has Yet to Happen is an unusual and clever “end of the world” story: There is no Bruce Willis character to save the day; there is no spaceship to hop on and escape; in fact there is not even much in the way of panic. The initial reaction of people in this book is…