Rolling out Shin Kyung-sook's "Take Care of My Mother" in 15 Languages

As reported over at the Herald,

The publication rights for the best-selling South Korean novel "Take Care of My Mother" have been sold in 15 countries, with the first overseas edition to be published in China next year, a local agency said Tuesday, according to Yonhap News.

I can't seem to find the article, but this book was credited for turning around the fiction publishing industry in Korea. It's a topical book, focusing on Alzeheimer's and according to an article at the times features the splintered narratives that modern Korean author's love so much.

The book consists of four chapters in which the narrators are the daughter, son, husband, and finally, the mother. In each chapter, the narrators tell of their memories and experiences.

As they look for her, they come to realize their indifference to her pain and loneliness. They realize their love for her because of their need.

Might make a nice chick-flick?

And, at least, it's another step away from political novels. ;-)

OK then... translate some literature the world cares about..

I shouldn't be so cranky about this, but the Korea Times has an article about its translation contest winners in which, well.. read it..

Korea Times President and Publisher Park Moo-jong hoped more English translations of Korean literature would boost the chances of a Korean winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in the future.

"It would have been nice if a Korean won the Nobel Prize for Literature this year. But with your participation and love, hopefully, we can have a Nobel Prize winner in the near future," Park said during the ceremony.

Yeah.. so stop translating so many works that have no chance...

Ahem..

rant over..

looking at what did win the translation contest I am pleased to see a work by Park Wan-suh's "Ode for Longing." If there is a Korean author whose subject and style resonate when translated, it is Park (Who ate up all the Shinga, There a Petal Silently Falls, etc..). I must shamefully admit that I don't know the works of the other writers whose translations won, which means over this break, I have tons of reading to do.

Win-win!

And stop obsessing about the prize.. holy cow... not everything in life is judged by the judges...

;-)

In the Korea Times, more Korean discussion about the need to win a Nobel Prize for Literature. Once again the focus is a bit off to me.. One of the women featured says:

"Jessica and I have always talked about the lack of English translations of Korean literature and movies. Although there are many good works, when they are translated in English there are mistranslations and even grammar mistakes. We felt this was so unfortunate,'' Han said.

And the general point might be accurate - to say that there is not enough translation over all, but then to jump to the many good works which are mistranslated or have grammatical mistakes (and of course they exist, I recently went ballistic reading a God-awful translation of Aunt Suni), is to ignore that many of the works that are translated are "good" to Koreans, but have little impact in the West because their topics are not appropriate. Just one example has been the fairly relentless tendency of Korea to translate its ‘literature of national division’ (pundan munhak or 분단 문학 if my Hangul isn't too cruddy) which has very little relevance to the West and is bleak in a non-existential way, and thus not very attractive to potential readers or voters.

If that sort of problem is not addressed, no amount of technically perfect translation is going to help Korea win its first Nobel for Literature.

And, to be fair, in other spots, the women's analysis was exactly correct, such as:

I think the Korean government should support the translation of Korean literature. People from other countries know a lot about Japanese literature, because there are lots of translated Japanese works in other countries. This makes people interested in Japanese culture too,'' said Han.

The link between Japanese literature hitting the US in 1970 and the cultural wave that followed shortly thereafter is pretty clear, and with Korean food about to take off, and its products already ubiquitous, it is time for the literature to get in position to do its part in globalizing Korean culture. Also, in this case, it seems that the work that the translators have been doing is spreading the thematic range of translated work, which is something that can't happen fast enough.

Having said that, however, and given Han's first complaint that there aren't enough works translated I have some trouble understanding her last claim that,

There are so many great works by Korean writers that the world should see. Also, I think that the best way of creating serious interest in Korean literature and culture would be to have a multitude of translations for each piece. Often you see just one 'definitive' translation of one work. Translation is an interpretative art and we need more than just one perspective,'' she said.

Surely, in a world in which there currently aren't enough translations in general, it is unwise to multiply translate works that have already been published?

UNSRC Korean Cultural Society - picks up my article on translated Korean Literature

UPDATE: and the Literary Saloon mentions me as well. ;-)


The United Nations Staff Recreation Council has a webpage and they've taken my article whole.

This is their mission

1. The purpose of the Society is to promote and disseminate Korean culture and traditions among its members and among members of the United Nations (UN) staff and diplomatic community.

2. The Society shall fulfill its purpose through the organization of a range of activities related to Korean culture, including, but not limited to, cultural, social, recreational, charitable, scientific and educational activities.

3. The activities organized by the Society shall be consistent with the purposes, principles, dignity and good name of the UN and shall not be motivated by political and/or commercial purposes.

The Three Most Popular Novelists in Korea? One Book Available in English

LOL - the title is a bit of a cheat, since the next two authors bring the total up to 5 currently in print and as many as 8 potentially available. ;-)

In any case, here is an interesting but brief list of the favorite Korean novelists of Koreans from the Korea Times.

Interesting to note that two of the top four authors are women, something that you would likely not see in the United States, for reasons I leave for other amateur sociologists to follow up. I also note that they are all pretty old (Park Kyung-ni is recently deceased at age 81, Lee Oi-soo is 62 as is Yi Mun-yol, and Hwang Suk-young is 67, only Gong Ji-young is young at a sprightly 46)

Here are the first five authors and the availability of their work in English (as I could find it on the web):

Most popular was Lee Oi-soo - For whom I could find no translated works
Second, Park Kyung-ni - The Land (Currently out of Print)
Third, Gong Ji-young - My Sister, Bongsoon
Fourth Yi Mun-yol - Our Twisted Hero; Twofold Song; An Appointment with My Brother; The Poet (apparently out of print)
Fifth, Hwang Suk-young - The Shadow of Arms; The Old Garden (Which may or may not be published in translation soon)

The excellent news for me is that I now have another Yi Mun-yol book to track down. He's gone three for three on books I found, so I have high hopes.

Fewer than 400 books translated in a decade?

According to Arirang, by way of the Chosun Ilbo. That's only 40 a year, and I'd be interested to discover how many of these were books of poetry.

No surprisingly Yi Munyol leads the list with most books translated. Actually not a bad choice as "Our Twisted Hero" is a good novelette and "Two-fold Song" is also pretty cool as is "An Appointment With My Brother".

I think this might be doomed to fail ;-)

Because I'm guessing the United States isn't "ready for Sijo."

Harvard Professor David McCann clearly shares an interest in Korean Literature, but I'm afraid he is a popularizer who doesn't get what is going to sell to the US public. McCann wants to try to sell Sijo (A form of Korean poetry) to the US public. I'd like to go to pains to point out that I'm glad he's trying it, and since it is his thing, he shouldn't stop, but the results he seems to envision seem rather unlikely.

He begins with a great point about how initial experience to a culture can pave the way for substantial additional contact later.

“Students who have a haiku day, when they grow up and see a Japanese novel, they’ll be interested,’’ McCann says. “There could also be a sijo day. Children might find sijo something they can try, then one day see a Korean novel translated and say, ‘I can read it.’

Although it is a point that skips over the tremendous numerical disparity between translations of Japanese and Korean novels.

But Sijo, really? To take on Haiku and consequently lead to reading literature?

I doubt it for several reasons

First, Haiku

a) Already owns this spot
b) is shorter (thus easier to write)
c) is a more didactic form (thus both easier to judge the “success” of and less complicated to think about)
d) Is way simpler. Sijo is a traditional poem of 43 to 45 syllables whose third line contains a twist on the theme developed in the first two.

These are massive advantages that the Sijo probably can’t overcome. Haiku is just about perfect for school kids (and it is at school kids that McCann partially aims).

Second, and far worse, Sijo translation or marketing of Sijo is a repetition of the essential translation or marketing failure that Korean Literature has perpetrated upon itself for years. It focuses on very narrow academic niches that have little or no impact.

Third, if the market for the novel is shrinking, the market for published poetry in the West is shrunk. At least books can still become bestsellers, or better, turned into movies, which is really how culture (alas) is currently translated. One “The Host” or "Oldboy" is worth twenty volumes of poetry in terms of getting the name of Korea out there in the world.

I can’t find at the moment, but need to dig up, the Korean critic who overdid it a bit by saying that Korea needs to publish an international “Da Vinci Code.” The guy was aiming low, but at least he realized that it is the mass market that Korea needs to address,

Also, I have grave doubts about this claim

Now, McCann posits, Korea’s time has come. A so-called “Korean Wave’’ of exported television shows, movies, and musicians is attracting attention across Asia and beyond. “Winter Sonata’’ has been a TV hit around Asia, pop singer Rain has played Madison Square Garden, and Park Chan-wook’s “Old Boy’’ won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004.

Since it seems (Note - this is, as the Violent Femmes once sang, "only a guess") to be coming clear that Hallyu (The Korean Wave) may have crested.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2008/03/28/opinion/opinion_30069377.php

Or worse, check, out Korea's own website on the "wave" which by page 2 is reduced to touting the fact that movies shown in Korea, have English subtitles, and counting US citizens of Korean ethnicity as part of the wave (Really, Sandra Oh is part of a Korean wave? Denzel Washington must be part of the African wave, by that logic).

Finally, the article itself notes three similar, quite unsuccesful, attempts at the same popularization in the last 17 years.

With all that said, good luck to the Professor, and I certainly hope he proves me wrong. ;-)

Korean Domestic Literature Continues to Flourish

Good news from the Korea Times, which managed to evade me when it first came out. The main point of this is that there is a powerful demographic of women in their 20s and 30s that is purchasing Korean Literature. I'd hope that the more they buy, the more is published and eventually, it will all trickle down to me in translation. ;-)

Korean literature is booming more than ever despite the economic downturn that has dealt a serious blow to the local publishing industry.

According to the Kyobo Bookstore, sales of Korean literature publications including poems, essays and novels dramatically increased by 35.7 percent in the first quarter over the same period last year. The number of Korean literature books sold in the same period rose 36.2 percent ....

.... New formats and patterns in Korean literature are attracting readers, especially younger women, who are the main buyers of literature books.

.