49th Translation Awards Poetry Grand Prize

Below is an excerpt of the winning translations. -- ED.

Written by Kim Ki-taek

Translated by Yang Eun-mi and Ed Bok Lee

Death of a Thousand Years

The mummy of an Incan man

Was allegedly found in the Andes Mountains

Frozen, eyes shut, the whole body curled up.

The worn-out head skin reveals skull;

Ragged clothing

Clings to the armpits and genitals a bit like hair.

This body that has been dead over a thousand years

Looks like ruins, not a corpse.

Its flesh has not actually rotted, just

Become worn, or broken like the stone pillar of an ancient temple.

The man is at the peak of growing ripe in death.

The riper the flesh becomes― tough, stubborn, rank―

The more it approaches the color and scent of soil.

In the ruins where food had been given and secretions excreted,

Moss, trees, wild herbs, and roots snoop around, tempted

Into the space between ribs, heart, and intestines

Full of nutritive elements.

But as he has not yet completely become one with the soil,

The man is contained in the spine, crooked from the cold.

On knees and elbows crumbled a bit like an earthen wall,

Bones not yet transformed into stone are exposed.

The face holding nothing but time, cold, and darkness for over a thousand years

Is in deep, dreamless slumber, without a thought, like a lump of soil.

Blue leaves and red flowers seem to bloom on that face.

A face deeply immersed in the fragrance of grasses and flowers.