Blockbusters Boost Literature in 2009
Veteran Novelists Return to Literary Scene With New Masterpieces in 2010
By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter
Has the common belief that literature booms during an economic recession come true? The year 2009 was a bumper year with big-name writers producing high-quality work also in quantity.
According to YES 24, an online bookstore, the number of literary works increased by 30-40 percent from January to November this year, compared to the same period last year.
The rise in the popularity of literary books has mostly been driven by the enormous acclaim of new works by high-profile writers such as Shin Kyung-sook and Haruki Murakami.
Also, books written by female writers pushed up sales due to their delicate and heartwarming stories in a tough year.
Blockbuster Hits
The year's literature success includes Shin Kyung-sook's ``Take Care of My Mom,'' which was lauded as Book of the Year and at the same time the best seller of 2009 by readers visiting major bookstores.
The novel's influence was so powerful that it has made ``mother'' a hot item in the local publishing industry. It even inspired a theatrical drama with the same title which will be staged next year.
The book recently set a record, selling 1.2 million copies in the shortest period since it was published by Changbi Publishers.
But in the second half of the year, Murakami's ``1Q84'' jumped into the bestseller race. After being released here in late August, it swiftly swept the top of the best-seller list, selling more than 680,000 copies in just three months.
``1Q84'' alludes to George Orwell's ``1984,'' which has inspired many authors and also the pronunciation of the Japanese number ``nine'' is ``kyu,'' (Q). But in the book, ``Q'' most likely represents the word ``question'' asked by Aomame, the female protagonist, who discovers a new world between where she exists in reality, and of her life in 1984.
Power of Female Writers
Celebrated female writers such as Gong Ji-young, Han Bi-ya and the late Chang Young-hee swept the best-selling list at major bookstores.
Gong's novel, ``The Crucible'' whose title was taken from Arthur Miller's eponymous play garnered popularity among the readers for dealing with a sexual assault at Gwangju Inhwa School, a special school for deaf students, in which educational workers continuously sexually harassed their disabled charges in 2005.
Han's ``It Was Love,'' a collection of essays published when she quit working at World Vision Korea in July ― after eight and half years ― to study abroad. The author tells her stories in a casual way by looking back at her relief work in disaster-stricken areas and reliving private emotions.
The late professor and columnist Chang's posthumous work, ``Miracle I Lived, Miracle I Will Live'' was published a day before she died of cancer on May 9. The book is a collection of 39 of her essays she selected while in hospital, which were published in the Monthly Samtoh from October 2000 to June 2008. It includes her experiences during her sabbatical year in Boston in 2001, her struggle with cancer, her return to work before a relapse and her last words before she passed away.
Rise of E-Book
With the United States seeing dramatic growth in the e-book market ― an annual 58 percent in recent years ― the local industry has also been quick to show its interest in the new format.
When Booktopia, a content pool for major publishers and authors, was created in 1999 there wasn't that much interest in the e-book market here.
However, the new format is beginning to shine this year as e-book makers such as Samsung Electronics and iRiver have launched new devices, and major publishers and bookstores are collaborating to provide content. The local publishing industry sees a high possibility of an e-book boom equivalent to the success of Amazon.com's Kindle in the U. S.
According to Kyobo Bookstore, sales of e-books shot up by 36.5 percent from last year and its major consumers are men in their 30s. Male consumers represent 77.3 percent of total e-book sales.
Also, it estimates that next year will witness a doubling of the sales of e-books.
The bookstore said that those who have the readers tend to buy more books including both electronic content and paper books.
Among e-book bestsellers, ``Psychiatrics Tell Love Affair'' by Lee Chul-woo ranked first, followed by ``Warren Buffett'' by Ha Ji-hye and ``Don't Give Up, Don't Give Up, Never Give Up'' by Lee Sang-moon.
However, compared to the ever-flourishing online bookstores, small- and medium-sized offline bookstores are dwindling in number.
The total annual sales of the online bookshops amounted to 822.5 billion won last year, more than 30 percent for the whole industry. The rise in sales is expected to reach to one trillion won by the end of the year at this pace, according to the Korean Publishers' Association.
However, the number of small-and medium-sized bookstores has declined from 2,103 in 2005 to 2,065 in 2006, 2,042 in 2007 and below 2,000 last year. The 52-year-old Daehoon Bookstore recently went bankrupt in Daejeon, indicative of a ``doomed industry'' in the digital era.
Masterpieces Set for 2010
The boom in literature is here to stay in 2010 with new masterpieces by veteran authors and publications of online serial work as hard copy.
Among others, poet Ko Un's ``Maninbo'' (Ten Thousand Lives) has been completed 23 years after he started writing the popular historical poem in 1986. It will be published early next year over 30 volumes.
He started the monumental poem during his imprisonment with a determination to describe every person he had ever met. ``Maninbo'' represents one of the major classics of 20th-century Korean literature. Ko has often been nominated for the Nobel Prize.
This year's top novelist Shin will release her new work ``A Phone Call From Wherever Continues to Ring to Find Me'' next year, which was posted in a serial format on Alladin, an online bookstore.
``Gangnam-Mong'' penned by Hwang Seok-young, which was also posted on InterPark's Internet bookstore, will be published by Changbi next year.
Also, Yi Mun-yul's ``Bulmyeol'' (Immortality), which was inspired by the life of Korean independence fighter Ahn Jung-geun, will be published in print.