Korean short stories for foreigners

“The Last of Hanak’o” by Choe Yun, left, and “Chinatown” by Oh Jung-hee are two of the 15 volumes of a new Korean-English bilingual edition released in local stores by Asia Publishers this week. The series will serve as textbooks at Korea studies departments in a number of North American universities. (Photo : Asia Publishers)

A local publisher has released the first batch of renowned Korean short stories in both Korean and English in a bilingual series.
Asia Publishers released the first 15 books in the local market Wednesday. Readers will soon be able to buy them on Amazon.com as well.

The first set includes works by established writers such as Oh Jung-hee’s “Chinatown,” Choe Yun’s “The Last of Hanak’o,” Jo Jung-rae’s “The Land of the Vanished,” Hwang Sok-young’s “The Road to Sampo” and Shin Kyung-sook’s “The Place Where the Harmonium Stood.” Each volume is about 130 pages and costs 6,000 won.

Titled “Bi-lingual Edition Modern Korean Literature,” the series has three categories: “Division” (of the Korean Peninsula), “Industrialization” and “Women.”

“Despite Korea’s rising global status, it is still very hard to find our literature outside Korea,” Bang Hyon-seok, chief editor at Asia Publishers said during a press conference in Seoul, Wednesday. “We hope that the series will serve as a guide to Korean culture for foreigners.”

The short stories were chosen because they properly reflect Korea’s turbulent modern history that includes war, division, industrialization and democratization.

“We have chosen about 100 works which will be translated in the coming years,” said professor Lee Kyong-jae of Soongsil University who serves on the planning committee for the project. “Initially, we planned the series to spread Korean literature overseas. Also, we wanted to develop proper texts that could be used by foreign students of Korean studies.”

The publisher said it will release 35 more titles in the second half of the year.

The series will be used for Korean studies classes at Harvard University, Columbia University and University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

The series features writers that have been gaining recognition overseas, particularly Shin Kyung-sook, the first Korean and only woman to win the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012 for “Please Look After Mom” and Jo Jung-rae, a master of historical novels.

“Please Look After Mom” is now sold in 19 countries including the United States and various countries in Europe and Asia. It was translated into English by Kim Chi-young and released on March 31, 2011.

Published in 1992, “The Place Where the Harmonium Stood” is among her earlier successes. Shin began her career writing short stories and this is the first time for one of them to be published in English.

Jo Jung-rae has published some must-read novels for those interested in modern Korean history. He is the author of best-selling novels such as “The Taeback Mountains,” “Arirang” and “Han River.” The three works are considered a trilogy about Korean modern history. Some of his books have been translated and published in France, Germany, Japan and the United States. <The Korea Times/Do Je-hae>

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