The Korea Times celebrates 50th anniversary of annual translation awards
The winners of the 50th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards pose for a photo at the awards ceremony held at the Korea Press Center, Wednesday evening. From top left in the second row are professor Jung Ha-yun (judge), First Vice Minister of Culture Sports and Tourism Kim Yong-sam, Brother Anthony (judge), Literature Translation Institute of Korea President Kim Sa-in, The Korea Times President-Publisher Lee Byeong-eon, professor Min Eun-kyung (judge), KB Financial Group Senior Managing Director Sung Chai-hyun. From the right in the first row are fiction grand prize winner Leo-Thomas Brylowski, fiction commendation award winner Grace Payer, poetry commendation prize winner Yoo Ji-young, and fiction commendation award winner Jasmine Jeemin Lee. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk
50 years on, translation awards give global readers access to Korean literature
Awards serve as springboard for Korean literature's globalization
By Anna J. Park
The Korea Times, in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and KB Financial Group, hosted the 50th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards, Wednesday evening, at the Korea Press Center in central Seoul, presenting prizes to the winners. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the awards aiming to bridge the gap between Korean literature and global readers since its launch back in 1970.
More than 70 guests attended the event, honoring the occasion, including First Vice Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Kim Yong-sam, Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea) President Kim Sa-in, and KB Financial Group Senior Managing Director Sung Chai-hyun. Best-selling author Hwang Sun-mi, novelist Kim Sagwa and poet Heo Yeon, as well as representatives from several publishing houses also participated in the event.
During a congratulatory speech, Lee Byeong-eon, president-publisher of The Korea Times, praised former editor Hong Soon-il, who also attended Wednesday's ceremony, for his long-term vision that initiated the translation awards.
“The Korea Times' translation awards started in 1970 as a commemorative event to celebrate the daily's 20th anniversary that year. Since then, The Korea Times has hosted this event every year over the last 50 years. It was the idea of then editor-in-chief Hong Soon-il, who believed the annual literary awards would help build a bridge for Korean literary works to advance into foreign markets,” Lee said.
First Vice Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Kim Yong-sam also acknowledged the contributions over the 50 years in a congratulatory speech.
“Since the 1970s, when global interest in Korean literature was unheard of, The Korea Times' awards have led the way in the history of the nation's literary translations. For the last five decades, the awards have helped to introduce Korean literature to overseas readers. The current status of Korean literature nowadays owes much to the years-long efforts exemplified by the translation awards,” the vice minister said.
“The culture ministry aims to expand support to nurture literary translators, especially in more diverse languages for dissemination in various other countries.”
Kim Sa-in, a former poet and literary critic, particularly noted the annual awards' years-long contributions in discovering and nurturing exceptional literary translators, who have played major roles in introducing Korean literature to the world.
“The translation awards represent the history of Korean literary translation. LTI Korea was established some 30 years after the Korea Times translation awards were initiated. The awards were begun when no one talked about the globalization of Korean literature and no one deeply pondered the role of its translators,” Kim commented.
“The Korea Times paved a trailblazing path as a pioneer. The first recipients of the awards in their first and second years were Kevin O'Rourke and Lee Sung-il, who are now both emeritus professors at universities, and still active translators. For the past 50 years, the awards have served the role of a gateway for Korean literature into the world.”
Out of dozens of entries, Canadian Leo-Thomas Brylowski received the Grand Prize in the fiction category for his translation of "Choe Mijin, Where Have You Gone?" by novelist Lee Ki-ho. Brylowski was praised for his fluidity in successfully capturing the narrator's voice, and his creativity in translating humorous wordplay in the original text. Brylowski has been on a fellowship program at LTI Korea since last year. He said he hopes to translate more of Lee's novels in the future, helping to widen his readership worldwide.
Grace Payer from the U.S. and Jasmine Jeemin Lee received Commendation Prizes for their fiction translations. Payer, who's currently studying at Seoul National University, translated "Burial" by novelist Kim Sagwa. Freelance translator and interpreter Jasmine Jeemin Lee worked on author Kim Se-hee's "Still Days."
Novelist Kim said: “The short story Burial is something I wrote about 10 years ago. It is not conventional at all, and also different from my usual writing. So I was very grateful and surprised to know that a prize winner translated this work.”
In the poetry category, the team of Yoo Ji-young and Clarque Brown received the Commendation Award for their translations of Heo Yeon's poems from his book “Fifty Meters.” No Grand Prize in this category was awarded this year.
In a poetic speech, Heo thanked the translators for choosing his poems to translate into English, lauding them for their toil and painstaking efforts to make it work.
“I am grateful to the translators who read my poems and embrace their efforts to translate them into a foreign language, without any personal encounter,” Heo said. “Poems are the products of my inner struggles and they are made at a certain moment. Because of these time-consuming struggles, it is truly challenging to explain what poems are about. This is why people say poems belong to the readers, not the poets who wrote them, once they come out as prose.”
Sogang University emeritus professor Brother Anthony, Ewha Womans University professor Jung Ha-yun and Seoul National University professor Min Eun-kyung judged this year's entries.