Park Ji-won is a writer for The Korea Times who has been covering a wide range of topics from Korea’s culture to its politics. An avid journalism enthusiast to the core, Ji-won brings a thoughtful and unique perspective to every topic she covers. On weekends, you'll often find her contemplating life’s purpose on a yoga mat — with a cup of quality tea in hand. A native Korean speaker by birth and fluent in English through her work, she went to college in Japan and is learning Chinese and French — hoping to add Polish, Russian and Thai to the mix.
More good news for Korean literature
Author Ha Seong-nan. Korea Times file
By Park Ji-won
'Bluebeard's First Wife' made US magazine's top 10 books of the year
By Park Ji-won
Cover image for “Bluebeard's first wife'
More good news for Korean literature arrived this week amid a festive mood in the nation's literary circles following the overseas success of several Korean novels and works of poetry.
Author Ha Seong-nan's “Bluebeard's First Wife” published by Open Letter was named in the U.S. weekly news magazine Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Books of 2020. This is the second time for a Korean book to have made the list, following Han Kang's “Vegetarian” in 2016.
The contemporary fiction book, initially published in Korean in 2002, includes a collection of short stories on various issues in society. “Bluebeard's First Wife,” which is also the title of the book, is about the tension between a married couple created by their secrets. “The Star Shaped Stain” revisits the tragic incident that occurred at the Sealand Youth Training Center in 1999 which killed 19 children and four teachers. It is Ha's third novel and it was translated by Vancouver-based translator Janet Hong, who has translated many Korean works of literature such as “Left's Right, Right's Left” by Han Yu-joo and “Grass” by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim.
The book was translated with the financial support of the Daesan Foundation
Publishers Weekly calls “Bluebeard's First Wife” an outstanding collection, noting it delivers “heavy doses of guilt, hope and pain.”
“Ha's nitro-fueled collection captures the dark side of South Korean society in mischievous, unapologetic feminist stories. Shocking violence occurs between a newly married couple, a dog is stolen, and neighbors are suspiciously noisy among other disturbances in this wonderfully weird book. Each story stands out, and together they form a nightmare impossible to turn away from,” it wrote on its website.
The magazine lists the top 20 books in each genre and selects 10 books from among them every year. Other books that also made Publishers Weekly's top 10 include “Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson and “The Dragons, the Giant, the Women: A Memoir” by Wayetu Moore.
The selection of “Bluebeard's First Wife” for the U.S. weekly magazine's annual list came on the heels of the Korean poetry book “Hysteria” clinching two U.S. prizes ― the National Translation Award and the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize. “Hysteria” was the first Korean literary work to win the two U.S. prizes.
Jake Levine, a poet and professor of creative writing at Daegu-based Keimyung University, lauded Janet Hong and the publisher Open Letter for their successful teamwork.
“I think translators are also curators and Janet Hong has translated such amazing authors and works with a great publisher at Open Letter,” he told The Korea Times.
“Bluebeard's First Wife” is Janet Hong's second translation of Ha's works following “Flowers of Mold.” Hong was a finalist for both the 2018 PEN Translation Prize and the 2018 National Translation Award.
Levine himself is a literary translator, too. He, along with Seo So-eun and Choi Hedgie, translated Kim Yi-deum's award-winning poetry book “Hysteria” into English.
It is only recently that Korean literature has drawn the attention of Western readers after several translated works won prestigious international awards or were nominated for prizes.
Levine said Korean literature's growing presence on the global stage may be the result of the combination of internet technology and the government's institutional support for literary translation.
“A lot of that success can be related to how technology and the internet has allowed Korean culture in general to flourish around the globe,” he said. “Without the institutional support of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, I don't know if either of these books would have been translated or published.”
Before “Hysteria” clinched two awards simultaneously, novelist Sohn Won-pyong's coming-of-age novel “Almond” won the 2020 Japanese Booksellers' Awards in the translated fiction novel category. Sohn was the first Korean to win the Japanese literary award.
Kim Hye-soon's “A Drink of Red Mirror” was also nominated for the 2020 Best Translated Book Award.
Levine said Korean literature has the potential to captivate Western readers, mentioning his experience of Korean poetry through “Hysteria.”
“When I first read 'Hysteria,” I remember reading the poem which we translated as Country Whore and knew this book was something unique,” he said. “I think there are so many dimensions to Kim Yi-deum's work, the rage but also the humor and playfulness. It's a book that deals with serious issues, but it is also real fun to read. I think that tension is exciting and unexpected.”