These nine stories span half a century of contemporary writing in Korea (1970s–2010s), bringing together some of the most famous twentieth-century women writers with a new generation of young, bold voices. Their work explores a world not often seen in the West, taking us into the homes, families,...

Mia et La môme se côtoient sans se connaître. Elles sont camarades de classe. Mia possède tout ce qu'un enfant peut désirer dans la vie, sauf l'essentiel. Quant à La môme, elle n'a pas cette chance...

A chilling, wildly original novel from a major new voice from South Korea The Impossible Fairy Tale is the story of two unexceptional grade-school girls. Mia is “lucky”―she is spoiled by her mother...

Australia’s taste for translated literature is getting broader, and that’s a good thing. In Australia, small and independent presses have been leading the charge. Brow Books, the new books imprint of Melbourne literary magazine The Lifted Brow, recently announced a co-publishing agreement with UK-...

PEN America is thrilled to announce the longlists for the 2018 PEN America Literary Awards. PEN TRANSLATION PRIZE For a book-length translation of prose from any language into English published in 2017. The Impossible Fairy Tale, Han Yujoo (Graywolf Press) translated from the Korean by Janet Hong

Looking back on 2017, it’s easy to declare the year a success for literary translation, which continued to thrive and move in exciting new directions. Resisting again the temptation to expand our list, we offer an admittedly incomplete collection of the year’s English translations. Bandi, The...

The Impossible Fairytale is told in two parts. The first part largely deals with an abused child’s diary. The second part is presented as the diary of the writer of this book. In the first part, Choi Mi-ah is killed by a classmate (in Korean, “mi-ah” means “lost child”). In the second part, the...

Few Korean literary writers since the turn of the century rival Han Yujoo in her deep awareness of writing. In the 1980s there was great interest in Korean literature that explored reality, and in the 1990s it was people’s interior lives, and since the 2000s, there has been a diversifying...