Kim-Chandler duo wins 45th Translation Awards
Kim Han-jo, right, president of Korea Exchange Bank, awards the grand prize winners of the 45th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards, Kim Jin-ah, center, and Seth Chandler, at a ceremony held at the Lotte Hotel in downtown Seoul, Thursday. Kim and Chandler translated Kim Sum’s novel “On Slowness.” / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
By Kwon Mee-yoo
The team of Kim Jin-ah and Seth Chandler received the grand prize at the 45th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards for their work on the novel "On Slowness" by Kim Sum, at a ceremony at the Lotte Hotel in central Seoul, Thursday.
Organized by The Korea Times and sponsored by the Korea Exchange Bank, the translation awards have produced a slew of top-notch translators, while spreading Korean literature to the world since their establishment in 1970.
This year, Amber Hyun-jung Kim received a Commendation Award in Fiction for her translation of an excerpt from Park Hyeong-seo's novel "Nana Before Dawn." Frederick Ronald Bottley and Jeong Mi-gyeong shared a Commendation Award for their co-translation of "Monsoon" by Pyeon Hye-young.
There was no grand prize winner in the poetry category; although Kim Sun-kyoung won a Commendation Award for her translation of Choi Seung-ja’s poems, including "From the Beginning.” She was not able to attend the ceremony.
The judges of the contest
Sogang University's Brother Anthony, Ewha Womans' University's Jung Ha-yun and Seoul National University's Min Eun-kyung
said the works chosen by the translators show a wide spectrum of Korean literature from short stories to poems, and were translated into fluent English with an understanding of how the stories flowed.
Kim Jin-ah is a translator for a motor company and Chandler is an English instructor interested in Korean culture, especially literature. The two were introduced to each other by Kim Jin-ah's professor. "We have similar choices in literature and I hope to collaborate more with Seth in the future," Kim said.
Amber Hyun-jung Kim currently resides in the United States and her mother Hwang In-sun represented her at the ceremony.
"It is a great honor to be here on behalf of my daughter. Amber is an interpreter, but also has an interest in translation. She often translates literary works and enjoyed participating in this contest," Hwang said.
Jeong, a middle school English teacher on Geoje Island, South Gyeongsang Province, and her co-translator Bottley were the winners of the 2012 Commendation Award in Poetry for their translation of “The Sewoon Shopping Mall Kid's Love" by Yoo Ha. Bottley could not attend this year's ceremony as he is in Toronto, Canada.
"Fred loves Korean literature, but he is not very fluent in Korean. So we work together to translate Korean literature. I came to the award ceremony to celebrate the translation of Korean literary works for people like Fred," Jeong said. "I had to take a day off to attend this ceremony and my students gave me a big round of applause for winning this."
The Korea Times President-Publisher Lee Chang-sup congratulated the winners and lauded their effort in translating literature from one language to another. "The Korea Times' translation awards are the only privately hosted awards commemorating the hard work of translators. I hope they will contribute to advancing translators’ status," Lee said at the award ceremony.
Kim Han-jo, president of KEB, expressed admiration for the elevated status of Korean literature in the world. "Korean Poet Ko Un is considered as an important candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards will help Korean literature take a step further by reaching a wider audience," Kim said.