56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards Judges' report

From left, Sora Kim-Russell, Krys Lee and Janet Poole, the judges for The Korea Times’ 56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards / Courtesy of Sora Kim-Russell, Krys Lee and Janet Poole

The Korea Times' 56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards entries continue to mirror the booming interest in Korean literature and growing community of passionate, capable translators.

Some clear trends in fiction included LGBTQ stories, dystopian themes and fiction inspired by K-pop. Poetry also showed a wide range, from the short and aphoristic to longer forms grounded in contemporary everyday life. Translators are finding writing that is meaningful to them and successfully communicating that to future readers.

Given the growing diversity among the texts chosen for translation, our discussion turned to the question of what it means to choose one type of text over another. Should the winning entries be somehow representative, and if so, of what? Should they primarily entertain and read smoothly in English?

There were excellent translations that grabbed our attention only to feel more superficial or less challenging than others. Other entries presented steep translation challenges that weren’t fully met in English. For poetry, there were noticeable differences in difficulty level and a number of entries were weighed down by an overly literal approach. Individual poems impressed us deeply, but ultimately we had to weigh each entry as a collection.

We came away from our discussion with a deepened understanding of text selection itself as a critical, and potentially under-examined, part of the translator’s job. Weighing which works will not only grab readers’ attention but also satisfy the expectations of their literary forms is a difficult but necessary task.

Our unanimous choice for the Grand Prize in fiction was the LGBTQ story, “The Things that Go By” by Kim Ji-yeon. We were impressed by the translator’s control of mood and voice. The story felt lifelike, subtle and fully realized, and the main character’s emotional development and the emotional throughline of the story were well-managed. We also appreciated the story's setting in a less glamorous corner of small-town Korea. The only glitches were kinship terms, the translation of which would benefit from more nuance. The judges especially appreciated that the story thematically moves towards connection and optimism, both of which feel in short supply these days. It is a beautifully written and translated love story that resists the pull of easy answers while still urging us toward hope.

For the Commendation Award in the fiction category, we chose “Aeon” by Choi Hee-ra as it stood out not only as a work of science fiction, with its vision of the human world, artificial intelligence and humanoids, but as an accomplished short story in English. It weaves moral complexity and emotional depth into a story that feels both timely and unsettlingly possible, while raising serious and engaging questions about love, consciousness and the boundaries between human and machine. Though it wasn’t at the same level of lexical complexity as the Grand Prize-winning story, the translation exhibited quiet precision in its control of rhythm and consistency and its balance between accuracy and lyricism.

Selecting the Grand Prize winner for poetry was more difficult. After narrowing down the contenders, we chose a set of poems by Pak Seo-won including “Calling 1” due to the higher complexity of the source text and the stronger control of language in the translation. This selection was an ambitious choice, given the density of language, the playfulness of the subject matter and its place in the map of Korean literature. The judges appreciated the distinctive voice that the translator crafted and their willingness to follow the source text to its melodramatic heights and cozier intimacies alike.

Our Poetry Commendation Award winner, translation of poems including “Words Close to the Heart” by Park So-ran, captured the judges’ hearts with its intimate voice and language grounded in everyday life. The translator did an admirable job of recreating line breaks and phrasings, though there were some missed opportunities that could have pushed this selection further. Because the language of the source poems was not as dense, omissions or changes to imagery or even sentence endings tended to be felt more keenly in the translation. Nevertheless, this was an accomplished translation that represents current trends in Korean poetry and deserves attention.

Finally, for the winner of the Kevin O’Rourke Prize, we chose “Iron and Flesh” written by Hyun Ki-young. This story boldly upends the expectations of the short story form, developing new strategies to suit its subject matter, the April 3 Jeju Massacre. The translator rose to that challenge with an energetic, emotion-driven voice that is carried through from start to finish, though the translation would benefit from revision of the longer, cumulative-style sentences, which can be notoriously tricky to translate. We are delighted to recognize the translator’s ambition and bold choice of text with this particular award. We wish, too, for this award to encourage other translators to think outside of traditional literary formats and to take risks. This was an unconventional yet all-too-timely choice that reminds readers of the power of literature to confront erasure and injustice.