UNITED STATES / Yu Miri / 유미리 / 2023 / literature  >  Korean Literature  >  Korean Fiction  >  21st century

From the National Book Award winning author, an extraordinary, ground-breaking, epic multi-generational novel about a Korean family living under Japanese occupation. In 1930s Japanese-occupied Korea, Lee Woo-cheol was a running prodigy and a contender for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. But he would have had to run under the Japanese flag. Nearly a century later, his granddaughter is living in Japan and training to run a marathon herself. She summons Korean shamans to hold an intense, transcendent ritual to connect with Lee Woo-cheol. When his ghost appears, alongside those of his brother Lee Woo-Gun, and their young neighbor, who was forced to become a comfort woman to Japanese soldiers stationed in China during World War II, she must uncover their stories to free their souls. What she discovers is at the heart of this sweeping, majestic novel about a family that endured death, love, betrayal, war, political upheaval, and ghosts, both vengeful and wistful. A poetic masterpiece that is a feat of historical fiction, epic family saga, and mind-bending story-telling acrobatics, The End of August is a marathon of literature. source: https://lti.overdrive.com/media/9451914?cid=37224

FRANCE / Bora Chung / 정보라 / 2022 / literature  >  Korean Literature  >  Complete Collection  >  Library  >  Complete Collection (individual)

SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE AND WINNER OF A PEN/HEIM TRANSLATION GRANT "Cool, brilliantly demented K-horror—just the way I like it!" —Ed Park, author of Personal Days A stunning, wildly original debut from a rising star of Korean literature—surreal, chilling fables that take on the patriarchy, capitalism, and the reign of big tech with absurdist humor and a (sometimes literal) bite. From an author never before published in the United States, Cursed Bunny is unique and imaginative, blending horror, sci-fi, fairytales, and speculative fiction into stories that defy categorization. By turns thought-provoking and stomach-turning, here monsters take the shapes of furry woodland creatures and danger lurks in unexpected corners of everyday apartment buildings. But in this unforgettable collection, translated by the acclaimed Anton Hur, Chung's absurd, haunting universe could be our own, illuminating the ills of contemporary society. "The Head" follows a woman haunted by her own bodily waste. "The Embodiment" takes us into a dystopian gynecology office where a pregnant woman is told that she must find a father for her baby or face horrific consequences. Another story follows a young monster, forced into underground fight rings without knowing the force of his own power. The titular fable centers on a cursed lamp in the approachable shape of a rabbit, fit for a child's bedroom but for its sinister capabilities. No two stories are alike, and readers will be torn whether to race through them or savor Chung's wit and frenetic energy on every page. Cursed Bunny is a book that screams to be read late into the night and passed on to the nearest set of hands the very next day. source: https://lti.overdrive.com/media/9078796

FRANCE / Min-Jin Lee / 이민진 / 2021 / literature  >  English and American literatures

L'histoire nous a failli, mais qu'importe. Début des années 1930. Dans un petit village coréen, la jeune Sunja se laisse séduire par les belles paroles et tendres attentions d'un riche étranger. Lorsqu'elle découvre qu'elle est enceinte et que son amant est déjà marié, elle est confrontée à un choix : devenir, comme tant d'autres jeunes femmes dans sa situation, une seconde épouse, une « épouse coréenne » ou couvrir sa famille de déshonneur. Elle choisira une troisième voie : le mariage avec Isak, un pasteur chrétien qu'elle connaît à peine et qui lui offre une nouvelle existence au Japon. Cette décision est le point de départ d'un douloureux exil qui s'étendra sur huit décennies et quatre générations. Avec une justesse historique remarquable et une écriture précise et dépouillée, Min Jin Lee nous offre, à travers un siècle de relations nippo-coréennes, un hymne intime et poignant à tous les sacrifices que font les immigrés pour trouver leur place en pays étrangers. « UN VÉRITABLE HOMMAGE AUX GENS QUE L'HISTOIRE SEMBLE DÉTERMINÉE À EFFACER. » - The Guardian Biographie de l'auteure : Née à Séoul, Min Jin Lee a immigré aux États-Unis avec sa famille à l'âge de sept ans. Elle a également vécu à Tokyo, où elle a écrit Pachinko, son deuxième roman. Elle vit aujourd'hui à New York. Finaliste du National Book Award en 2017, Pachinko s'est immédiatement hissé au rang de bestseller international et est resté plus d'un an en tête des ventes du New York Times. Il a été traduit dans 30 langues et est en cours d'adaptation cinématographique. source: https://lti.overdrive.com/media/10028075?cid=37224

RUSSIAN FEDERATION / Ким Сон Дон / 김성동 / 2023 / literature  >  Korean Literature  >  Korean Fiction  >  20th century  >  1945-1999

Длинный путь духовных исканий в мире, где правят мирские утехи.«Мандала» – полуавтобиографический роман, наполненный воспоминаниями о пережитых испытаниях и духовных поисках. Роман изобилует критическими выпадами по отношению к корейскому обществу и буддийскому монашеству, пораженному жаждой мирских утех.Автор знакомит читателя историей двух молодых людей, которые ищут правду жизни в религии.Copyright © Saeum Books All rights reserved.Russian translation rights © 2023 AST Publishers Ltd.Азарина Л. Е., перевод на русский язык, 2023ООО «„Издательство АСТ"», издание на русском языке, 2023 source: https://lti.overdrive.com/media/9929865?cid=37224

UNITED KINGDOM / Kang Hwa-gil / 강화길 / 2023 / literature  >  Korean Literature  >  Korean Fiction  >  21st century  >  Others

Vacuum cleaner bitch. When Jina sees this anonymous comment on a forum it forces her out of her stupor. It is posted on a website dissecting her public allegations of workplace sexual assault, the backlash to which forced her to quit her job. She has spent months glued to her laptop screen, junk-food packaging piling up around her, tracking the hate campaign that's raging against her online. This post stands out from the noise, for it could only have been made by someone who knew her as a student at university. The comment stirs something deeply repressed. So Jina returns to Anjin University, and to the toxic culture that destroyed the lives of many female students including one, Ha Yuri, who died tragically and mysteriously not long before Jina left. Somewhere within Jina's memories is the truth about what happened to Yuri all those years ago. Told in alternative viewpoints, in sharp, intelligent and multi-layered prose, this powerful and necessary novel confronts issues of sexism and abuse on university campuses. "Dark Academia the way I like it: Another Person is one of those novels where you're never sure who you should be rooting for, or if you should be rooting for anyone at all. Smart, and full of suspense, it will keep you guessing until the end." - Hanna Bervoets, author of We Had to Remove This Post Source: https://lti.overdrive.com/media/10079691?cid=37224

UNITED STATES / Cho Nam-joo / 조남주 / 2022 / literature  >  Korean Literature  >  Korean Fiction  >  21st century

From the internationally bestselling author of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 comes this chilling dystopian fable for fans of Netflix's Squid Game. A National Book Award Finalist hailed as "a social treatise as well as a work of art" (Alexandra Alter, New York Times), Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 announced Cho Nam-Joo as a major literary talent. In her signature sharp prose, brilliantly translated by Jamie Chang, Nam-Joo returns with this haunting account of a neglected housing complex in the shadows of Town: a former fishing village bought out by a massive conglomerate. Town is prosperous and safe―but only if you're a citizen with "valuable skills and assets," which the residents of Saha Estates are not. Disenfranchised and tightlipped, the Saha are forced into harsh labor, squatting in moldy units without electricity. Braiding the disparate experiences of the Saha residents―from the reluctant midwife to the unknowing test subject to the separated siblings―into a powerful Orwellian parable, Nam-Joo has crafted a heartbreaking tale of what happens when we finally unmask our oppressors. source: https://lti.overdrive.com/media/9229022

UNITED KINGDOM / Cho Nam-joo / 조남주 / 2022 / literature  >  Korean Literature  >  Korean Fiction  >  21st century

There are two classes of people in the Town: L and L2. The ones with citizenship are referred to as Ls, or Citizens. They are above a certain level of financial status with knowledge or skills that the Town requires. The L2s are people without citizenship but have a clean criminal record. After interview and physical examination, they can stay and work for two years in this safest and richest corporate nation on earth. Then there are those below even the L2s, illegal aliens called the saha. They are the immigrants, the disabled, the misfits, victims of violence and poverty who dwell in the decrepit Saha Mansion and are named accordingly. So what happens when a respected young pediatrician is found dead in a parking lot, with evidence of drug overdose and sexual assault, and the prime suspect is her saha boyfriend? A major police crackdown ensues, with the boyfriend quickly arrested and executed, but is he really behind the murder? His sister, Jinkyung, vows to find out the truth, only to discover the disappearance of a saha girl who has been the test subject of the Town Medical Lab. What lies behind the impenetrable walls of the Town, and who are the mysterious seven Premiers who rule it? Eight years in the making, SAHA MANSION is a powerful tale of dystopia and a battle cry for the dispossessed. Cho gives voice to the marginalized and often unseen minority: They are all Kim Jiyoung, every single one of them. source: https://lti.overdrive.com/media/8808503

UNITED STATES / Djuna / 듀나 / 2023 / literature  >  Korean Literature  >  Korean Fiction  >  21st century  >  SF  >  Fantasy

On the fictional island of Patusan—and much to the ire of the Patusan natives—the Korean conglomerate LK is constructing an elevator into Earth’s orbit, gradually turning this one-time tropical resort town into a teeming travel hub: a gateway to and from our planet. Up in space, holding the elevator’s “spider cable” taut, is a mass of space junk known as the counterweight. And stashed within that junk is a trove of crucial data: a memory fragment left by LK’s former CEO, the control of which will determine the company’s—and humanity’s—future. Racing up the elevator to retrieve the data is a host of rival forces: Mac, the novel’s narrator and LK’s chief of External Affairs, increasingly disillusioned with his employer; the everyman Choi Gangwu, unwittingly at the center of Mac’s investigations; the former CEO’s brilliant niece and power-hungry son; and Rex Tamaki, a violent officer in LK’s Security Division. They’re all caught in a labyrinth of fake identities, neuro-implants called Worms, and old political grievances held by the Patusan Liberation Front, the army of island natives determined to protect Patusan’s sovereignty. Originally conceived by Djuna as a low-budget science fiction film, with literary references as wide-ranging as Joseph Conrad and the Marquis de Sade, Counterweight is part cyberpunk, part hard-boiled detective fiction, and part parable of South Korea’s neocolonial ambition and its rippling effects. Source: https://lti.overdrive.com/media/9383038?cid=37224

UNITED KINGDOM / Cho Nam-joo / 조남주 / 2023 / literature  >  Korean Literature  >  Complete Collection  >  Library  >  Complete Collection (individual)

FROM THE AUTHOR OF KIM JIYOUNG, BORN 1982 Eight women. Eight stories. One reality. A woman is born. A woman is filmed in public without consent. A woman suffers domestic violence. A woman is gaslit. A woman is discriminated against at work. A woman grows old. A woman becomes famous. A woman is hated, and loved, and then hated again. Written in Cho Nam-Joo's masterful, razor-sharp prose, Miss Kim Knows brings together the lives of eight Korean women, aged 10 to 80. Contained in each of these biographies is a microcosm of contemporary Korea, and the challenges and injustices that women face from childhood to old age. As with Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, the fates of these eight women are the fates of women the world over. And under Cho Nam-Joo's precise, unveiled gaze, nothing and nobody escapes scrutiny—not even herself. Source: https://lti.overdrive.com/media/9657405

UNITED STATES / Han Kang / 한강 / 2023 / literature  >  Korean Literature  >  Korean Fiction  >  21st century

"Now and then, language would thrust its way into her sleep like a skewer through meat, startling her awake several times a night." In a classroom in Seoul, a young woman watches her Greek language teacher at the blackboard. She tries to speak but has lost her voice. Her teacher finds himself drawn to the silent woman, for day by day he is losing his sight. Soon the two discover a deeper pain binds them together. For her, in the space of just a few months, she has lost both her mother and the custody battle for her nine-year-old son. For him, it's the pain of growing up between Korea and Germany, being torn between two cultures and languages, and the fear of losing his independence. Greek Lessons tells the story of two ordinary people brought together at a moment of private anguish—the fading light of a man losing his vision meeting the silence of a woman who has lost her language. Yet these are the very things that draw them to each other. Slowly the two discover a profound sense of unity—their voices intersecting with startling beauty, as they move from darkness to light, from silence to breath and expression. Greek Lessons is the story of the unlikely bond between this pair and a tender love letter to human intimacy and connection—a novel to awaken the senses, one that vividly conjures the essence of what it means to be alive. Source: https://lti.overdrive.com/media/9173209