新刊JPニュース / December 25, 2020

聞いてくれたまえ。 これは、この地の救済不能の独裁者のひとり、全斗煥将軍が国を統べていた時代の話だ 。 ということは、三十年余りの歳月を経た話ということになる。しかし、歳月なんぞ毒にも薬にもならないということを、我らが主人公が身をもって証明してくれる。彼は、その頃からいまに至るまで、依然として指名手配中の人物だ。 こんな書き出しで始まる物語は、時代の狂気に呑み込まれて、人生をめちゃくちゃにされた一人のタクシー運転手の物語だ。 いや、より正確に言うならば、ナ・ボンマンという名のそのタクシー運転手もまた、語りあげられた歴史物語の中に登場する人物のひとりでしかないのかもしれないが。

Dublin Literary Award / -

2015 Printable Longlist : Book List (Lee Ki-ho, Jang Eun-Jin)

koreaherald / October 27, 2013

The first 10 volumes of Dalkey Archive Press and the Literature Translation Institute of Korea’s Korean literature series will be hitting U.S. bookstores on Nov. 16, the Korea-based translation institute announced Tuesday.   Source : http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20131017000941

koreatimes / March 23, 2014

Among numerous foreign publishers and scholars, the LTI has selected three winners from each language area — The Dalkey Archive Press (John O'Brien) for English, Adelaida F. Trotsevich for Russian and Argo (Milan Gelnar) for Czech.   Source: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/culture/2014/03/386_153886.html

TOTTALY DUBLIN / April 25, 2015

Despite the considerable international success of its musicians, filmmakers and contemporary artists, South Korea has never really figured on the global literary landscape. It’s difficult to know why exactly, especially from this vantage. The Korean language enjoys a comparatively belated relationship with the written word: it was without its own script until King Sejong introduced Hangeul to the masses in 1446. A less speculative explanation would point out that not very much of the work has been translated. This year Dalkey Archive has teamed up with the Literature Translation Institute of Korea to publish twenty-five new translations of contemporary Korean fiction. Totally Dublin took a look at three.

The Guardian / November 19, 2013

A young man, Jihun, travels through a series of nameless cities in Korea with his dog, Wajo, staying at motels every night. At each one he writes a letter to someone he has met on his travels, or to a member of his family. He then writes on the underside of the room's sink a brief record of his stay there, and moves on to another motel. Sometimes the motel will refuse to accept dogs; to get round this, he puts on dark glasses and pretends to be blind, saying Wajo is his guide dog. (In truth, it is the dog who is blind.) He does not refer to the people he meets by name, but instead assigns them a number.

list_Books from Korea / -

Dear Reader, I Leave Us a Void, Let Us Fill It Together!: Writer Lee Kiho Author's Profile By Han Eun-hyeong on Oct 20 2014 09:50:26 Vol.22 Winter 2013       Han Eun-hyeong: You’ve changed residences from Wonju to Seoul and then again from Seoul to Gwangju. Do you feel a great difference? For example, in your most recent short story collection Who Is Dr. Kim?, which you wrote while living in Gwangju, you didn’t just write “To Me, A Very Ethical Piece of Underwear” there, and you were actually thinking of leaving that short story out.   Lee Kiho: I do really feel a difference. Since it’s a change of space, the people you meet are different, and even my writing seems to have changed. Whenever I publish a new book I see how I’m changing—maybe as a kind of finishing of one stage and moving on to another. “To Me, A Very Ethical Piece of Underwear” seemed like it really went better with my second collection. I don’t think it was just a question of where I wrote that story.

list_Books from Korea / -

Memory, Time, and Politics   By Son Jeong Soo on Oct 22 2014 08:20:08 Vol.1 Autumn 2008 In a country where industrialization and democracy took root simultaneously, how will young Korean writers reflect on and investigate the issues of Korean modern history? These writers examine society’s social problems through a new reality and through new techniques. Within the prism of their vision, what will be the reality of the Korean society that they perceive?     After the 1990s, Korean society entered a new phase that was different from the past. People began agreeing that Korea was a rare case among developing countries in that it had accomplished both industrialization and democratization. Upon the realization of industrial and democratic goals, matters of individual desire begin to precede attitudes emphasizing public ideology. Due to the intimate relationship between literature and society, this kind of social change has been organically reflected in novels. The concern of novels has gradually shifted from the public sphere to the private sphere. The position of nation, people, and ideology in novels has been replaced by matters of domesticity and private life such as issues of family, sexuality, social minorities, and so forth. The changes are evident in the form of the novel. Varieties of media became more prominent, and the walls between high culture and low culture have broken down. With these social changes, the boundary between literature and other media has continued to collapse. Traditionally accepted aesthetics has lost its ground in contemporary Korean novels.

list_Books from Korea / -

Alienation Without Pity: No One Writes Back by Jang Eun-jin   By Philip Gowman on Nov 16 2014 11:12:26 Vol.24 Summer 2014   No One Writes Back Jang Eun-jin Jung Yewon Illinois Dalkey Archive Press 2013 199pp. ISBN 9781564789600 I can’t remember having cried at the end of a novel before, particularly one in which nothing much happens. No One Writes Back is a beautiful gem that works its slow magic on you over the course of 152 numbered paragraphs of which the shortest is only three words, at least in the English translation. The blurb on the back of the book rather undersells it, pitching Jang’s writing as “…this sly update of the picaresque novel.” I had to look up what a picaresque novel was, and still have no idea why it might need a sly update. This novel can in fact easily stand on its own without being put in a particular literary context. And unusually for many Korean novels and short stories that have made it into an English translation, No One Writes Back can speak to a world audience without the need for a Korean primer. There are only two terms, White Day and Chuseok, that might lead a person with limited contact with Korean culture to head for a search engine, but both words and their significance are perfectly well explained on Wikipedia, and maybe these days do not need a footnote anyway. Otherwise, this poignant novel, in which nothing much happens but which talks about human communication and family relationships, speaks to people regardless of language and nationality. It is a fine choice to be included in Dalkey Archive’s first set of translations in their Library of Korean Literature. It deserves to stand well on its own as a novel, not as something to be studied as world literature.     Share. Twitter Face

群像 / May 07, 2020

創作　小林エリカ「脱皮」 リービ英雄「文字の高原」 不妊治療に励む理科教師。死を待つ老人。何かを手放したい少女たち。災厄のなかで、生への希望が試される。時代の危機にこたえる、新たな小説が誕生した。小林エリカの創作「脱皮」。 チベットの高原にある寺院にたどり着いた「かれ」は、奇妙な体験をする。言語と言語、大陸と大陸、国と国、そして人と人の狭間から生まれる、文学の現在地。リービ英雄の創作「文字の高原」。 新連載　福嶋亮大「ハロー、ユーラシア」　諏訪部浩一「薄れゆく境界線――現代アメリカ小説探訪」 世界の秩序が変わりつつあるいま、「ユーラシア」の存在がふたたび浮上している。来たるべき世界を幻視する、批評の冒険。福嶋亮大の「ハロー、ユーラシア」。グローバル化で「アメリカ」自体の輪郭がぼやけていくなか、近代の産物たる「小説」はどう時代に応接してきたのか――「アメリカ」の新しい「見取り図」。諏訪部浩一の「薄れゆく境界線――現代アメリカ小説探訪」。