New leader seeks to redefine LTI Korea's role
By Yun Suh-young
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Kim Sa-in, newly appointed president of LTI Korea, speaks in front of the press Tuesday at a restaurant in Seoul. / Yonhap
Kim Sa-in said Tuesday the Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea) would seek a greater role under his leadership.
“What is Korean literature?” he asked in a prepared speech to the press in his first public appearance at a press conference in Seoul.
“We’re no longer satisfied with our passive, technical role of supporting translators and exchange programs for writers. As an organization similar to the literary circle’s version of a foreign ministry responsible for all Korean content, LTI Korea will redefine its role."
He cited the progress made so far, including last year’s Man Booker Award given to Deborah Smith’s translation of “The Vegetarian” by Han Kang.
“For the past 20 years, our institute has been striving to place Korean content on the global stage. The efforts have paid off, such as the winning of the Man Booker Award by a Korean author. However, it’s time to reflect on ourselves and question what Korean literature really is and what it should be. Without asking this existential question, despite the increase in translated publications, I’m afraid we may end up failing to create an image about Korean literature as a whole.”
The new president plans to expand the realm of Korean literature in both space and time -- spatially expanding to include the entire Korean Peninsula including North Korean literature; and temporally to traditional literature including musical lyrics such as pansori, sijo and hyangga. Kim plans to create a new department for Korean literature to carry out such endeavors.
“I think it’s a viable way to diversify the pool of Korean content which has been constrained until now. I believe we have been neglecting the question of what really constitutes Korean literature in terms of form and content and therefore there’s a need to establish that. If we don’t mull deeply over our tradition, I believe it will be difficult for Korean literature to settle in world literature,” he said.
Kim’s plan to redefine the role of Korean literature seems to stem from his background. He is the first president of LTI Korea to have majored in Korean literature, unlike his predecessors who had various foreign literature backgrounds. His immediate predecessor was Kim Seong-kon, who was an English literature major. Kim Sa-in has a bachelor’s degree from Seoul National University and a master’s degree from Korea University in Korean language and literature. He completed the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa and served as an exchange professor at Harvard University’s Korea Institute. He is a poet and literary critic, and a professor at Peking University before being appointed to the position.
One of LTI Korea’s biggest projects this year is the release of the Korean Literature Anthology published by the Cornell East Asia Program. The publication has been in the making for the past 10 years and will finally be published during the second half of this year. The anthology will include 30 to 40 representative Korean literary works from over the past century.
When asked whether he put more emphasis on liberal translation or literal translation, along with what he thought of the criticisms posed against the creative translation of Deborah Smith for “The Vegetarian,” Kim said this is something to be thought over.
“There needs to be more discussion on the essence of translation,” he said. “We’re used to the dichotomized categories of literal and liberal translations, but I think it’s less about transferring the dictionary meaning of a word and more about transferring the heart of the original piece. We definitely need to talk more about this.”
Kim also plans to increase residential and work spaces for translators as there is a desperate need for them.
“There needs to be more spaces for translators and writers to work together because translation requires collaboration and concentration. We also plan to establish an information platform to search Korean literature in various languages,” he said.
He also called for local publishers to push their efforts to export Korean literature overseas.
“Maybe they’re having difficulty because they haven’t tried exporting. If they can pioneer in the business sector to open an overseas market, our institute will support it in all ways.”
Despite all of these ambitious plans, however, Kim said the budget allocated to the institute was way too low to carry out more than a handful of projects.
“Our budget is 9 billion won and of that, 2 billion won to 3 billion won is operating costs. Our institute has long operated under an extremely tight, low budget. We need two or three times this. We definitely need help and will actively ask for more,” he said.