Writers’ festival coming to Seoul, Jeju

The Seoul International Writers’ Festival will take place in Seoul and on Jeju Island from Oct. 29 to Nov.3. Under the theme “Reality and Imagination,” the five-day event will invite 20 writers, including prominent writers from abroad for lectures, discussions and tours.

The biennial event has been hosted by the Literature Translation Institute of Korea since 2006 to help Korean writers’ overseas activities.

This year, the institute has changed the title of the festival from the World Writers’ Festival to the Seoul International Festival and will intensify the interactive program with audiences in Daehangno, deemed a mecca of culture and art here.

Korean writers such as Kim Yujine, Kim Tae-yong, Yun I-hyeong, Jung Young-moon, Choi Jae-hoon, Kim Ki-taek, Kim Yi-deum, Shim Bo-seon, Jin Eun-young and Choi Jeongrye will participate in the event.

Fay Chiang, Ivy Alvarez, Jakob Hein, Jean Philippe Toussaint, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, Johannes Goransson, K. Srilata, Leon Plascencia Nol, Minato Kanae, Phillippe Besson and Uthis Haemamool will attend the festival as international guests.

Dobbs was born in 1975 in Wonju, Gangwon Province and adopted to the United States. Best known for her novel “Paper Pavilion,” she is now collecting unwed Korean mothers’ narratives with the Korean Unwed Mothers and Families Association.

The participants will visit Jeju Island on Oct. 29 and 30 to experience the traditional culture and natural environment. They will also go on sightseeing tours, hike and visit folk villages as well as holding free talks along with a reading session during the festival. Writers will discuss the role of literature today and art created from the imagination and multiple realities of the world.

For more information, visit siwf.klti.or.kr. <The Korea Times/Chung Ah-young>