Craftsmen and their works are increasingly at the vanguard of the promotion of Korean culture, with an exhibition in Saudi Arabia being the latest example.According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the month-long “Hidden Match ― An Exhibition of Korean Craft” kicked off on Thursday at the Saudi National Museum with 34 artists featuring 106 sets of items. This is the first time a handicraft exhibition is being held in the Gulf state. Featuring a wide range of handicrafts ― includin

NEW YORK (AP) ― James McBride’s “The Good Lord Bird,” the comic and terrifying adventures of a disguised black child caught up in John Brown’s abolitionist crusade, was the winner Wednesday night of the National Book Award for fiction.George Packer’s brutal examination of the modern class wars, “The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America,” won for nonfiction during a dinner ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street in downtown Manhattan. Cynthia Kadohata’s “The Thing About Luck” won for young peo

In his 1976 novel, “The Great Santini,” Pat Conroy spilled all the beans that a good son is never supposed to spill: He wrote about his brutal father, his cowed mother, his frightened and abused siblings, and his own defiant and terrorized young self ― all thinly disguised, of course, as fiction.Like Bull Meecham in the novel, Donald Conroy really was a Marine fighter pilot, really did beat and terrorize his wife and kids, really did drink to excess, really did swagger around and call himself “T

It’s the spring of 1937 when Evalina Toussaint, the narrator of “Guests On Earth,” first catches sight of Zelda Fitzgerald, wearing black tights and ballet slippers and smoking a cigarette, on the grounds of Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina.By then, Zelda had been married for 16 years to F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was so infatuated with the Montgomery belle when they first met that he wrote the same line to her over and over: “I used to wonder why they kept Princesses in towers.” Nev

The Crane in the Clouds: Shijo: Korean Classical Poems in the Vernacular, By Lee Sung-il(HOMA & SEKEY BOOKS)Scholar Lee Sung-il recently published a book of more than 100 Korean classical poems, known as “sijo,” in a Korean-English bilingual edition. “Sijo is a uniquely Korean form of poetic composition,” writes Lee, Professor Emeritus at Yonsei University in Seoul, in the book. “Neither composing nor reading a sijo required any rigorous training. Simply stating what one felt at a given moment i

LongbournBy Jo Baker(Alfred A. Knopf)Looking at the ever-growing list of contemporary fiction presuming to improve on Jane Austen (with or without zombies), readers may well wonder why they can’t leave the poor author alone. Happily, Jo Baker’s “Longbourn” is no mere riff but a fully imagined rejoinder to “Pride and Prejudice” that casts a sharp working-class eye on the aristocratic antics of Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Darcy and their friends.The Bennets’ housemaid Sarah is Baker’s heroine, and she s

Priceless national and royal seals from the Daehan Empire (1897-1910) have been seized in California by U.S. authorities. When they are returned, which could be as early as next June, the artifacts will be the most valuable items of cultural heritage to be repatriated to Korea to date, the Cultural Heritage Administration said Wednesday.According to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations unit and Korea’s Cultural Heritage Administration, the items confisc

Korea has dedicated an assembly plant in Lima, Peru, to jointly roll out the basic trainer KT-1 aircraft with the South American country.The Korean Embassy in Peru, Korea Aerospace Industries and the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency held a dedication ceremony for the plant on Las Palmas Air Base in Lima on Tuesday. Peru’s Defense Minister Pedro Cateriano also attended the event.Peru is the first South American country to import Korea’s first completely indigenous aircraft developed by KAI

The Community Chest of Korea kicked off a fund-raising campaign for the needy Wednesday. Hyundai Motor Group was the first donor to join the campaign. Hyundai Motor Group vice chairman Chung Eui-sun visited the Community Chest of Korea to deliver the group’s 25 billion won ($23.65 million) donation to the fund-raising organization’s chairman Lee Dong-kurn. “Our executives and employees raised the money to return our customers’ support for us to society and to share with needy neighbors,” Chung s

The 42-year-old Space Group headquarters building in central Seoul, widely hailed as Korea’s best modern structure, is likely to be registered as a cultural heritage, authorities said Wednesday. The Cultural Heritage Administration announced that the 224.56-square-meter building designed by legendary architect Kim Swoo-geun (1931-1986) between 1971 and 1977 will be reviewed for registration as a cultural heritage site early next year after a thorough inspection next week. “It is true that modern

The man who helped grow the market for vessels designed specifically for different wines is hosting a “Riedel Glass Tasting” event at the Grand Hyatt Seoul on Nov. 22.Georg Riedel is the former head of Riedel Glas Austria, the more than 250-year-old family business famed for the style-specific wine glasses that created a stir when first released in 1973. Riedel, whose family business roots go back 10 generations, is also the pioneer who launched the Vinum collection, the “first machine-made, var