Two fairytales by poet Jeong Ho-seung, “Loving” and “Lonesome Jar: Poetic Fables,” have been published in English by Seoul Selection. Born in 1950 in Hadong, South Gyeongsang Province, Jeong is known for his poetry collections “Seoul’s Jesus” (1982), “Dawn Letter” (1987) and “Stars Are Warm” (1990), among others. His poems have been turned into songs by popular singers including Yang Hee-eun and the late Kim Kwang-seok. The sto

Former President Barack Obama’s "A Promised Land" sold more than 1.7 million copies in North America in its first week, roughly equal to the combined first week sales of memoirs by his two immediate predecessors and among the highest ever for a nonfiction book. Crown announced Tuesday that it had increased its initial print run from 3.4 million copies to 4.3 million. Sales also include audio and digital books. "A Promised Land," the first of two planned volumes, was

Picture book “The Paper Boat: A Refugee Story,” released in September, recounts the story of author Thao Lam, who escaped Vietnam after the Vietnam War in a small fishing boat with her parents, becoming a refugee at age 2. Known for previous works including “Skunk on a String” and “My Cat Looks Like My Dad,” Lam walks through the pain of her refugee experience as well as the help she received in a foreign country that gave her a normal life once again. The

Ha Seong-nan’s collection of five short stories translated into English, “Bluebeard’s First Wife,” was selected as one of the Publishers Weekly Top Ten Books of 2020. This is the second time that a South Korean literary work has made the list. The first was in 2016, when Publishers Weekly recognized the English translation of “The Vegetarian” by Han Kang. “Ha’s nitro-fueled collection captures the dark side of South Korean society in mischievou

In television writer Joe Menosky’s first novel, “King Sejong the Great,” published last month in Korean and English editions, the renowned Joseon king is portrayed in historical fiction for the first time by a non-Korean. Although you would be hard-pressed to find a Korean who doesn’t know King Sejong, the most famous Korean figure in history had evaded the interest and the attention of Westerners. However, the story of the benevolent king who created the Korean writing

Samsung Human Resource Development Institute’s former Chief Learning Officer Shin Tae-gyun sheds light on the qualities that companies should keep an eye out for heading into the “fourth industrial revolution” when artificial intelligence replaces many jobs in his book “Talent’s Counterattack.” After joining Samsung in 1983, Shin worked his way up as a human resources education expert, delivering more than 1,000 lectures to Samsung employees. He is currently

Changbi Publishers announced the publication of two books commemorating the 10th anniversary of the death of Rhee Yeung-hui in a press conference on Tuesday. “Serving the Truth,” a critical biography of Rhee by Kwon Tae-sun, and a selection of Rhee’s literary work, “For Those That Think and Resist” by Baek Young-seo and Choi Young-muk, examine the life of the journalist and scholar and his legacy. Rhee was a journalist and an outspoken social critic who was not a

Yun Yuh-soon shares her experience as LG Group’s first female executive in her book ‘Winning Gracefully”

The 2020 Seoul International Writers’ Festival, the largest international literary festival in South Korea, will take place online Nov. 2-8, with the aim of expanding opportunities to enjoy literature while providing a platform for literary exchange. Eleven writers from 11 foreign countries and 14 Korean writers are taking part in this year’s festival, themed “Writing Tomorrow.” Participating writers include Luis Eduardo Garcia of Mexico and Paolo Giordano of Italy, the

An English translation of Kim Yi-deum’s book of poetry “Hysteria” (Action Books) became the first-ever book to win both the National Translation Award and the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize given by the American Literary Translators Association on Friday (local time). “Hysteria” is Kim’s third book of poems to be translated into English with the support of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea. The title poem is about a women being groped on a

The graphic novel “Grass” by Keum Suk Gendry Kim was awarded “Best International Book” at the Harvey Awards, while the German translation of “Memoir of a Murderer” by Kim Young-ha was selected by Germany‘s Hotlist this month. “Grass” is a story about women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II. Most of the women were Korean. The book was published in English last year by Drawn & Quarterly, a publisher i

When the Korean War ended in 1953, Korea did not have many journalists skilled in reporting in the English language. Many reporters did not have a chance to study in an English speaking country and had to consult the dictionary to find just the right word while writing their stories. One of the earliest reporters for English newspaper The Korean Republic, founded in 1953 and later renamed The Korea Herald, was Lee Hi-chang. Born in 1928 in South Pyongan Province in today’s North Korea d

The prolonged battle against the COVID-19 outbreak is changing life patterns, including how we read and digest books. Public libraries have shut down with some offering delivery-only services, or activating “e-bookshelf” sections online as an alternative way out during and after the crisis. Efforts for new reading experiences seem to have gained overall success so far. According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, in 2019, the rate of e-book readers hit 16.5 percent for

When writer Emily Jungmin Yoon released her 2018 book of poems “A Cruelty Special to Our Species,” it was to inform North American readers about the “comfort women,” a euphemistic term for military sex slaves of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. With the publication of the Korean translation of the book Aug. 14 with the full English version included in the back, Yoon sees her purpose as not to inform, as many Koreans are familiar with the history, but to c

Columnist for The Korea Herald and the Elders Press of Korea, Kim Myong-sik has released “All in the Same Boat,” a compilation of 140 columns that he wrote for the Elders Press of Korea from March 2017 to July 2020. This is a second compilation of his columns. “Jongno Square,” containing three year‘s worth of columns, was published in 2013. In journalism for more than 40 years, Kim has served as a correspondent for Reuters, managing editor of the Korea Times and