Where to Kim? / May 31, 2021

In the short story collection Cursed Bunny, Bora Chung will amuse you with all the unusual things that are considered perfectly ordinary. Location: South Korea Cursed Bunny synopsis Cursed Bunny is a genre-defying collection of short stories by Korean author Bora Chung. Blurring the lines between magical realism, horror, and science-fiction, Chung uses elements of the fantastic and surreal to address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society. Anton Hur’s translation skilfully captures the way Chung’s prose effortlessly glides from being terrifying to wryly humorous. Winner of a PEN/Heim Grant.

Publishers Weekly / July 02, 2021

Explorations of class, race, and sexuality play into many of this fall’s notable fiction debuts, including a novel about a young Black woman working in financial services, a South Korean gay romance, and more. Nawaaz Ahmed Supersized and Fully Formed In 1994, Nawaaz Ahmed left India for a graduate program in computer science at Cornell. “I don’t think in India you go around saying, ‘I want to be a writer,’ ” he says from his home in Brooklyn. Like his debut, Radiant Fugitives (Counterpoint, Aug.), which PW called “dazzling” in a starred review, the path to writing a novel was long and windy, and informed by his political consciousness as a gay Muslim immigrant. Ahmed took a job in the Bay Area with Inktomi in 2000, touted at the time as the next Microsoft, he says. Two years later its stock plummeted from a peak of $241 to a quarter a share, and the company was sold to Yahoo. By 2007 he’d become involved with book clubs and writing groups mainly comprising other South Asians and went part-time at Yahoo to focus on his writing. In 2009 he left for the University of Michigan, expecting to finish a book by the time his MFA scholarship support ran out. “But it took 10 years,” he adds, laughing.

bookriot / August 20, 2021

August is Women in Translation Month! Roughly 30% of books published in English translation are written by women, according to numbers pulled from the translation database started by Three Percent and Open Letter and now hosted by Publishers Weekly. Founded by literary blogger Meytal Radzinski and now in its eighth year, Women in Translation Month was started to promote women writers from around the world and combat this dreadfully low statistic. As summer rolls around each year, I go through catalogs and read a stack of galleys and pick out some of the titles by women in translation I’m most excited about published in June, July, and August. And it’s another great summer for books by women in translation. Exciting debuts, literary thrillers, powerful social novels, and so much more. And whether it’s just something about publishing this summer or the books I’ve been drawn to recently, but there are a lot of new short story collections. So if you’d like to dip in and out of some incredible short fiction — or for the nonfiction fans, a stunning collection of essays — in these last days of summer, you’re in luck. Check out these hot summer 2021 new releases by women in translation!

Forbes / September 27, 2021

For National Translation Month, I interviewed three freelance translators who work in various languages: Jennifer Croft, who translates from Polish, Ukrainian and Argentine Spanish, Anton Hur, who translates in Korean and English, and Arunava Sinha, who translates in Bengali and English.* They discussed what makes a good translation, translator royalties, receiving credit on book covers, and issues within the publishing related to the treatment of translators. See part one on their education in languages, how they get work as translators, and how they approach their translating work.

The New York Times / November 16, 2021

Here is my favorite moment from this novel about love: While lying in bed beside Gyu-ho, the great love of his life, the narrator, Young — a cynical writer who would never use the phrase “great love of his life” — asks his partner why he continued their sexual relationship after he found out about Young’s H.I.V. infection (which he playfully nicknames Kylie, as in Minogue).

Entertainment Weekly / November 01, 2021

Perhaps the best of the COVID-pandemic-inspired novels so far, Our Country Friends plays with the social and cultural woes of early lockdown. A group of friends and colleagues decamp for an estate in upstate New York, each packing their own specific blend of neurosis and desire for self-destruction; as the pandemic wanes on, their collective plights become more and more complicated, all to the reader's delight. (Nov. 2)

The Boston Globe / October 14, 2021

Bryan Washington says one of the reasons he wrote his award-winning story collection “Lot” was that his native city, Houston, especially its more hardscrabble side, was so underrepresented in literature. Houston is also the backdrop of the young author’s much-lauded debut novel, “Memorial,” which he has described as a “gay slacker dramady.” Among his many awards, Washington was named a National Book Award 5 Under 35 honoree in 2019. The author is a writer-in-residence at Rice University. “Memorial” is out in paperback Oct. 26.

NPO Radio 1 / October 26, 2021

Het boek 'Liefde in de grote stad' van Sang Young Park, over het leven van een queer millennial, is een mega bestseller in Zuid-Korea. Mattho Mandersloot heeft het boek vertaald en legt uit waarom het zo baanbrekend is.

Trouw / November 23, 2021

Na popmuziek, games en films is nu ook literatuur uit Zuid-Korea wereldwijd in opmars. Deze K-lit geeft een aardig inkijkje in de moraal van het land, weet vertaler Mattho Mandersloot. ‘Het is daar niet de bedoeling dat je een scharrel meeneemt naar je ouders.’ Sander Becker23 november 2021, 13:05 De K-wave overspoelt de wereld, ook met boeken. Zuid-Korea timmert cultureel enorm aan de weg. Het land verovert de wereld met popmuziek, games, films, series en zelfs romans. De successen stapelen zich op: van de maffe raphit Gangnam Style tot aan de met vier Oscars bekroonde film Parasite, en van de horrorkomedie Squid Game tot aan kimchi, de gefermenteerde kool die oprukt op menukaarten. Deze Korean Wave of K-wave is bewust door de Zuid-Koreaanse regering op gang gebracht, al in de jaren negentig. Het land probeerde destijds uit een economische crisis te klauteren. Waarom gaan we geen cultuur exporteren, was toen het idee. Dan verwerf je in het buitenland bekendheid en soft power, waardoor ook mobieltjes en beeldschermen van Zuid-Koreaanse multinationals als Samsung en LG meer aftrek vinden. Het werkt. Neem alleen al de populaire boyband BTS. Hun internationale discohit Dynamite leverde het land vorig jaar 1,2 miljard euro aan economische activiteit op, plus 8000 nieuwe banen, aldus een schatting van de overheid.

Mixed Grill / December 06, 2021

Na het succes van K-pop en Koreaanse series als Squid Game is nu het perfecte moment aangebroken om de Koreaanse hedendaagse literatuur te ontdekken. Hiervan bestaat geen beter voorbeeld dan Liefde in de grote stad van Sang Young Park. In eigen land is dit boek een van de grootste hits van de laatste jaren en nu lijkt het succes zich door te trekken naar Europa en de VS. Na het lezen van dit boek kun je niet anders concluderen dan dat dit geheel terecht is. Als geen ander weet Sang Young Park de liefde in al zijn facetten op prachtige wijze te omschrijven. Niet alleen de mooie, romantische kant komt aan bod, maar ook liefdesverdriet, sleur en liefdeloze seks.