The South Florida Times / December 01, 2020

Charles Yu’s “Interior Chinatown” was cited for fiction and Kacen Callender’s “King and the Dragonflies” for young people’s literature. The poetry prize went to Don Mee Choi’s “DMZ Colony” and the winner for best translated work was Yu Miri’s “Tokyo Ueno Station,” translated from Japanese by Morgan Giles. Honorary medals were given Wednesday night to mystery novelist Walter Mosley and to the late CEO of Simon & Schuster, Carolyn Reidy, who died in May at age 71. The children’s author and current US Youth Ambassador for young adult literature Jason Reynolds served as emcee, and along with Bob Woodward and Walter Isaacson was among the Simon & Schuster writers who appeared in a taped tribute to Reidy.(...)

KQED / December 14, 2020

As the winter solstice approaches, nights grow long, and you're stuck at home because of the pandemic, it's a good time to curl up with a book.  New York Times Book Review editor Pamela Paul joins us to share her favorite books of 2020. We'll also hear from some local authors to get their picks, and open the phone lines for listener recommendations for a great read.(...)

Two Lines Press / November 19, 2015

We were very honored to host poet and translator Don Mee Choi in the Two Lines Press offices to discuss her work with Korean poet Kim Hysoon in a conversation with Two Lines Press’s Scott Esposito. The conversation centered around Choi’s latest translation of Kim’s work, Sorrowtoothpaste Mirrorcream, which was published in 2014 by Action Books, although it spanned the length of Choi’s involvement with Kim, which goes back to the early 2000s and the many translations they have collaborated on. Source: http://twolinespress.com/audio-two-voices-salon-with-don-mee-choi-on-kim-hyesoon/

the Quietus / November 27, 2016

Source: http://thequietus.com/articles/21396-verfreundungseffekt-literature-translation-sophie-collins-test-centre

orionmagazine / May 25, 2021

AST MONTH, we posted a list of poetry recommendations for National Poetry Month, and the response was so positive we’ve decided to offer up more recommendations, this time in honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Orion’s poetry editor Camille Dungy and her community of writers are back with essential collections for your nightstand. Camille Dungy’s Five Recommended Poetry Collections: DMZ Colony by Don Mee Choi A bricolage of poetry, prose, real and imagined translations, photographs, memories, and hand-drawn overlapping circles, Don Mee Choi’s excavation of the lasting legacy of decades of war and occupation on the Korean peninsula is shot through with birds. I write of the landmass rather than the countries’ political designations because the line that differentiates the experiences of the people of North and South Korea is often muddy in Choi’s DMZ Colony (Wave Books). While she is walking in Missouri, a migration of snow geese passing overhead sets off the author’s vertigo and triggers her return to Seoul. We learn the circumstances that caused her family to have to flee—to have to, as her mother says, live “like birds”—and we read about people who could not escape, those who “had no place to land.” Choi’s 2020 National Book Award-winning DMZ Colony might not be the most obvious choice of books to recommend to Orion readers, given the fact that so much of the book is focused on very human concerns, but questions of migration, safety, and the impossibility of return are universal. Choi dedicates this book to “all the birds and children in flight,” and her work is a stirring and necessary witness to the realities of this inextricably connected world.

International Examiner / December 02, 2021

On Sept. 28, the MacArthur Foundation announced its 2021 class of fellows. Along with 24 others, the foundation honored Don Mee Choi, a poet and translator who lives in Seattle and teaches at Renton Technical College. Known colloquially as “genius grants,” MacArthur fellowships are awarded “to individuals who show exceptional creativity in their work and the prospect for still more in the future.” Fellowships include a stipend of $625,000 over five years, for use in whatever way the fellows see fit. The MacArthur Foundation recognized Choi for her work “bearing witness to the effects of military violence and U.S. imperialism on the civilians of the Korean Peninsula.”

My Edmonds News / April 16, 2023

A powerful work of cultural memory that recovers voices from Korea’s heartbreakingly violent postcolonial history.

SWR2 / June 28, 2023

Einführung in das Buch von Don Mee Choi: DMZ Kolonie.