By Chi-Young Kim
When people find out I’m a translator, one of the first questions they ask is how I choose the books I decide to translate.
Like anyone else, I have a loose set of criteria that I consider before taking on a project: I tend to favor novels over poetry or short stories because that’s the literary form I enjoy the most; more often than not, I choose younger writers because I identify with their tales, narrative styles, and voices; and at the back of my mind I always consider it will cross over to an English-speaking audience.
While I love many different Korean books, I do know that an English-speaking audience would have a difficult time with historical novels, as many are unfamiliar with East Asian history, and I avoid some books that are too steeped in traditional Korean culture to find a wider audience.
These days, I am in touch with agents and editors who usually suggest a new project. I still keep an eye out for projects I will do out of pure love for the material, but the bulk of my work comes my way from those within the Korean and American publishing industry.
I will only take on a project if I love the book. Since I will spend over a year living with, breathing, and thinking about a work of literature, I can only be happy if I am working with a text that is simultaneously compelling and challenging.
Of all the genres, I’m the least enthused about thrillers. This has nothing to do with disdain for fiction perceived as lowbrow. It’s really because I have almost no threshold for frightening images.
When I was very young, someone bought me a terrifying “educational” picture book about death. Next to conventional images of the changing seasons, it referred to people dying and rotting under the fallen leaves of trees.
While I appreciate the effort to impart scientific knowledge, I think five may be a little young to learn what happens when you die. I didn’t sleep for years and developed a very unhealthy obsession with Nostradamus.
When I was in middle school, I saw the movie “Scream’’ and didn’t sleep for a week. In a bout of masochism, I went through a stint of reading all the terrifying Stephen King novels when I was in seventh grade, and I still get a physical reaction when I see clowns.
After over a decade of staying away from whatever he wrote, I succumbed this year. I read his latest, which is about time travel and the Kennedy assassination. I didn’t think it would be frightening from the book description, and naively thought it was a historical novel.
In fact, parts of it were so chilling that I had nightmares for a week. A month later, when a friend of mine, who was reading the same book, asked for my thoughts on the significance of “Jimla,” I startled a group of tourists walking near us with an unwitting screech. I think I still have goose bumps on my arms.
Recently, I was asked to take a look at a very popular thriller as a prospect for translation. The agent was very enthusiastic about this author and the book, which got me excited about it, too. I read the thriller in a single afternoon, and it did its job; I was scared for the next few days.
But unlike some other horror books I’ve read, it didn’t stay with me. I thought the character development was lacking, the work was derivative, and the entire plot seemed forced and ultimately unbelievable. I declined the project. I know that was the right decision for me; when I think back to that book, I only remember its flaws and many of the unrealistic sequences.
Despite my dislike for thrillers, a few months ago I translated a sample of another novel with thriller elements. I’d first read that book during the sleep-deprived month right after my daughter was born; it was probably a bad idea, since I was sleeping terribly to begin with.
The book gave me deeply unsettling, murky dreams. Whenever my family asked how the translation was coming along, all I said was that it was giving me goose bumps. One day, a friend of mine rang the doorbell when I was revising it, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
Unlike the other novel, this one is tightly crafted, with characters that have depth and conflicting impulses, and it grapples with compelling issues of loyalty and revenge.
I can see this very cinematic book appealing to a wide swath of English-speaking readers. I hope the book is acquired soon; if the publisher wants to work with me, I will gladly translate the book, but I hope I won’t be on edge and develop a fear of the dark for the entire duration of the project. That would be a long time without sleep.
Chi-Young Kim is a literary translator based in Los Angeles. She has translated works by Shin Kyung-sook, Kim Young-ha, and Jo Kyung-ran. Contact her at chiyoung@chiyoungkim.com or via her website, chiyoungkim.com.