Building cultural bridge

• Published May 8, 2014 4:30 PM KST
• Updated May 8, 2014 4:30 PM KST

‘Strong female writers are

asset for Korean literature’

By Chung Ah-young

Even Shin Kyung-sook, a Korean literary bestseller for her work “Please Look After Mom” needed Barbara J. Zitwer, a New York-based literary agent. So did Hwang Sun-mi, author of “The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly.”

Zitwer, the head of the Barbara J. Zitwer Agency, a global literary and film agency, noticed their potential. The agency now represents prominent Korean authors, including Shin and Hwang, to sell their books to foreign publishing markets.

Zitwer attended the London Book Fair last month, which was a great opportunity to sell Korean books to international publishers and readers.

“I think the book fair 2014 was a historic moment for Korean literature. I think the ripples will resonate for years to come and the long-term benefits of the fair will be enormous,” she said in an email interview with The Korea Times.

A slew of Korean books including “The Hen,” Lee Jyung-myung’s “The Investigation” and Going Ji-young’s “Our Happy Time,” were published at the time of the fair and received a huge amount of attention in the mainstream U.K. press, such as the Guardian, Independent and Metro, as well as international publishers.

“The Hen” is a bestseller now at Waterstones and WH SMITH; while “The Investigation” sold 250 copies in one afternoon at the famous Goldsboro Books, and Gong has been invited to the prestigious “Hay on Wye Festival” this month.

Korean literature seems to be enjoying unprecedented international acclaim, but the beginning was not easy.

Zitwer said that she has fought with some conventional practices, which put less emphasis on unfamiliar content for American publishers. The biggest challenge was to change their thinking about Korean books and to open their minds to the world outside their borders.

“I suspect that most American publishers do not travel a lot and do not speak other languages, as Europeans do all the time. I do believe that American readers and the population, however, are much more open-minded and love great stories wherever they come from — definitely,” she said.

But the few people at the top who pick and choose usually want to publish what they personally know about or have done before that has made a lot of money. “That is the greatest challenge,” she said.

Nowadays though, the American publishing world has changed completely from an editorially driven business to a marketing driven business. “As the world is coming closer together because of social media, the Internet and globalization, American publishers will recognize that readers want different things and that Korean books can sell,” she said.

Strong female novelists

When she first read Jo Kyung-ran’s “Tongue,” she was blown away by her writing style and the story. After that, she read more works by Korean female authors such as Han Kang’s “The Vegetarian” and Gong’s “Our Happy Time.” She was overwhelmed by the wealth of literature that had been undiscovered by the world.

“I found the Korean authors I was reading were brilliant and had very unique and singular fresh literary voices, and they were incredibly accessible at the same time. I had never heard those voices before so I was shocked by their beauty,” she said. Particularly she was attracted to the women writers and the universal subjects of their books. It is not an accident that she represents many Korean female writers to share the ideas of womanhood, struggle for independence and fighting against marginalization, and eroticism through the concerns of women, the inner thoughts of women.

Zitwer is also an independent woman who built her career herself from scratch. She has worked since she was 14 and carved out a unique niche for herself.

“I have to fight a lot to maintain my freedom as a single, small literary agent in this corporatized, packaged and shrinking publishing world, especially in America. It has not been easy, but I am kind of a fighter. So, in many of the Korean books I was attracted to, I read about women struggling against the status quo, their abusive families, or how they were neglected; how they fought through the most elegant and seemingly small ways to exert themselves,” she said.

The chef in “Tongue,” the wife in “The Vegetarian,” the mother in “Please Look After Mom,” the young woman in “Our Happy Time” and the hen in “The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly,” are all heroines and make their own destiny. “They seemed so marginal to others, but were brave. They’re great characters,” the agent said.

Among others, she instinctively knew that Shin’s “Please Look After Mom” would make a breakthrough for Korean literature because it was the perfect combination of writing, an original voice and a completely universal story with unforgettable characters.

Shin’s upcoming English rendition of “I’ll Be Right There” available in June from Other Press is expected to raise her profile to another level.

“Shin and her books are not just literature; they are peacemakers,” she said.

“I’ll Be Right There” reminded her of John Lennon’s “Imagine” when she finished the last page. The book has already received better reviews than “Mom” and has been published to great critical success in Poland, China, Norway, Israel and Italy. In America, it is receiving starred reviews and raves from critics and writers.

She likens Shin’s new book to D.H. Lawrence who is valued by many as a visionary thinker and significant representative of modernism in English literature. “I think Shin is Korean’s equivalent,” she said.

Writer’s guide

Her role is to help authors earn their living from writing and fulfill their dreams. Zitwer said that a good literary agent is like a writer’s guide in the dark; a friend, an editor, a therapist, a mother, a business partner, a teacher, a soldier, a tinker and a spy. Many of the best commercial books are the result of collaboration between a writer and agent, translator, editor, publisher, publicist, sales representative, bookseller, cover designer and all the people who support and help a project be fully realized.

“It takes a village to make an international bestseller. In the West, it is very usual for good agents to be hugely involved in all aspects of a writer’s career, including sometimes coming up with ideas for new books and shepherding them through the writing process,” she said.