Seoul Book Club to showcase 2 young authors

The Seoul Book and Culture Club is hosting a question-and-answer session with two young authors on Saturday.

Chung Han-ah and Choi Eun-young are among the most recent to have their works translated and published in English as part of ASIA Publishers’ series of short fiction by new Korean authors.

The two writers will give a reading from their new books before a short interview with host Barry Welsh. Questions will be opened up to the audience for the second half of the event. 

Chung Han-ah’s “Halloween” tells the story of a woman coming to terms with the death of her grandmother. Closer relatives are envious that the old woman has left her market stalls to the protagonist, who contemplates her life.

“It’s just (about) ‘is she going to sell the stall or is she going to run it?’ It’s just a little slice of life, really,” said Welsh.

“It’s about death, and how we deal with death and how it can be a wake-up call to how we live our life.”

Choi Eunyoung’s “The Summer” is a love story about the lows and highs faced by a lesbian couple.

“It’s the kind of story that you just don’t encounter that much in translation. It’s a queer romance between these two young girls and it is just really sweet and lovely and touching,” Welsh said.

“It feels like the most significant contribution because there is just not that much queer and gay stuff translated,” he said.

ASIA Publishers are the publishers of the bilingual K-Fiction series of short stories. They publish some of the most exciting Korean literature available in English.

The event runs from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Haechi Hall in Seoul Global Cultural Center in Myeong-dong’s M Plaza building. Admission is free.

At the end of the month, the book club will see the return of Ko Un, one of Korea’s most celebrated poets, who is sometimes mooted as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

For more details about the club, visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/seoulbookandcultureclub.

By Paul Kerry (paulkerry@heraldcorp.com)