Free cultural performances will be offered at the grass-covered plaza in front of Seoul City Hall from Saturday to September.The Seoul Metropolitan City said on Wednesday it will create a 13-meter-tall stage at the open space for office workers to enjoy cultural activities daily at 7 p.m. (Seoul Metropolitan City)There are likely to be performances across genres including classical music, Korean traditional music, hip-hop and tango, among others. An 80-minute circus parade will take place on Sat

The Culture Ministry announced five winners of the 2016 Korean Young Architects Award on Wednesday. 　The winners were Kim Hyun-seok of June Architects and architect duos Shin Min-jae and Ahn Kee-hyun of AnLstudio as well as Lee Seung-taek and Lim Mi-jeong of STPMJ Architecture.  Lim Mi-jeong (left) and Lee Seung-taek of STPMJ Architecture (Korea Architects Institute) Shin Min-jae (left) and Ahn Kee-hyun of AnLstudio (Korea Architects Institute)　The prestigious architect award established in 2008

Prolific translator, professor Brother Anthony discusses poetry past and present

“Our Young Man” 　By Edmund White　Bloomsbury USA (304 pages, $26)　Esteemed novelist and memoirist Edmund White’s latest book, “Our Young Man,” centers on the aptly named Guy, a gay French model living in New York City.　The novel follows Guy’s life in the modeling industry from France to Manhattan, through hedonist parties and relationships with older, and then younger, men. Guy is blessed with almost unnatural good looks. Even when he ceases to be a young man, Guy remains exquisitely handsome, ab

“My Father & Atticus Finch”　By Joseph Madison Beck　W.W. Norton (218 pages, $25.95)　“To Kill a Mockingbird” has inspired readers and critics for decades. But what inspired Harper Lee to write her novel? Joseph Madison Beck suggests he may have the answer.　In this fast-moving memoir, Beck recounts how his father, a small-town lawyer, was thrown into the 1938 trial of a Northern black man accused of raping a local white woman in a southern Alabama town. His taking the case puts everything he loves

“K-Style: Living the Korean Way of Life”　By Choi Jung-wha　Designhouse (30,000 won, $26)  　Professor and interpreter Choi Jung-wha introduces Korean lifestyle to English-speaking audiences in her latest book.　Divided into four chapters -- spring, summer, autumn and winter -- the book traces what it is to live a distinctly “Korean” life in modern times, following both significant events that take place each season and everyday joys like watching “meokbang,” or broadcasts of people eating food, on

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Disney is letting “Frozen” go in new directions.　The company says Anna, Elsa, Olaf, Kristoff and Sven from the blockbuster 2013 animated film will appear in both new books from Random House and an animated short film series from the Lego Group.　 The eight-book series “Frozen Northern Lights” will revolve around the characters attempting to restore the aurora borealis with a new troll protagonist named Little Rock. 　  This image released by Disney Publishing shows the cover of

Last fall Hogarth Press published the first in a series of novels by contemporary writers reimagining Shakespeare's plays on the 400th anniversary of his death. So far we’ve had Jeanette Winterson’s “The Gap of Time: The Winter’s Tale Retold” and Howard Jacobson’s “Shylock is My Name,” an interpretation of “The Merchant of Venice.” 　Now Anne Tyler has written a charming and witty adaptation of “The Taming of the Shrew,” moving it to Baltimore, where many of her novels are set, and dialing down S

WASHINGTON (AP) --The Quran, revered by Muslims, is the centerpiece of a first-of-its-kind exhibition in the United States as the Smithsonian displays exquisitely decorated manuscripts from one of the top Quran collections.The Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery announced Tuesday that “The Art of the Qur’an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts” will bring 48 manuscripts and folios from the museum in Istanbul together with manuscripts from the collection of the Sackler and F

CAIRO (AP) -- Two ancient Egyptian sarcophagus covers have been delivered to Cairo’s Egyptian Museum after they surfaced at an auction in Israel.Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Anani says the colorful wooden covers, decorated with hieroglyphics and illustrations, were recovered after they went on sale in 2012 and arrived at the museum Tuesday following cooperation between the two countries and Interpol. Egyptian antiquities officials uncrate a sarcophagus cover on its arrival to the Egyptian Muse

Scandal-ridden celebrities disappoint loyal fans who have followed them for years

'No publisher is going to be interested in a book specifically or solely because it was written in Korean,' says Deborah Smith