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PHOTOS A glimpse into 50th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards

The winners of the 50th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards pose for a photo at the awards ceremony at the Korea Press Center, Wednesday evening. From left in the back 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), and KB Financial Group Senior Managing Director Sung Chai-hyun. From right in the front 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-sukFirst Vice Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Kim Yong-sam with fiction grand prize winner Leo-Thomas Brylowski. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-sukPoetry commendation prize winner Yoo Ji-young and KB Financial Group Senior Managing Director Sung Chai-hyun. KB was the main sponsor of the awards. Korea Times photo

Nov 14, 2019
A glimpse into 50th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards [PHOTOS]

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-suk50 years on, translation awards give global readers access to Korean literature Awards serve as springboard for Korean literature's globalization By Anna J. ParkThe Korea Times, in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and KB Financial Group, hosted the 50th Modern Korean Literat

Nov 13, 2019By Anna J. Park
The Korea Times celebrates 50th anniversary of annual translation awards

Poetry Commendation Prize Winners: Yoo Ji-young, Clarque Brown

Yoo Ji-young, left, and Clarque BrownBy Anna J. ParkBorn and raised in Seoul, Yoo Ji-young went to the U.S. at the age of 16 to study. She graduated from Cornell University with a degree in sociology and South Asian Studies. After spending some time as a sales manager, she now teaches English at a local institute. Yoo, however, has always kept a deep passion for literature, and languages as varied as Nepali, Hindi and Spanish.Clarque Brown grew up in Florida in the U.S., and earned her bachelor's degree in psychology from Amherst College in Massachusetts. She is also fluent in French and Spanish. After graduating, she won a Fulbright scholarship to teach English in Korea for two years. She went back to the U.S. in July this year, and is currently taking a master's program in education at Harvard University.Yoo and Brown met this spring and became friends through their shared passion for literature and languages. They decided to collaborate as co-translators and worked on the poet Heo Yeon's poems including "Fifty Meters.” It was Yoo who recommended Heo's poems for the joint tra

Nov 12, 2019By Anna J. Park
Poetry Commendation Prize Winners: Yoo Ji-young, Clarque Brown

Poetry Commendation Prize: Fifty Meters

Written by Heo Yeon and translated by Yoo Ji-young, Clarque Brown. Below is an excerpt of the winning translation. ― EDHeo Yeon's poetry book "Fifty Meters" / Courtesy of Moonji Publishing Co.Fifty MetersA poor-hearted man lives as a boy and contracts everlasting longingNot even fifty meters had I gone before I remembered you. My regret couldn't wait for fifty meters to pass and managed to restore you. Rumor has it that one can be so blessed as to forget just by turning away, but I was given no such blessing. Unblessed, in less than fifty meters, I began thinking of all that remained as feelings of guilt. What could I have done to brush aside my longing? Those fifty meters, no more than a stone's throw, are far from undemanding to an addict. I, standing like a still frame, ached for you. Days continued―days when moving beyond fifty meters without pause felt like a greater struggle than living a life of penance. Several times I froze in the street, in the dramatic pose of a wax figure. As if expanding equations to remove a couple of parentheses, I strenuously tightened my brow and ham

Nov 12, 2019
Poetry Commendation Prize: Fifty Meters

Fiction Commendation Prize Winner: Jasmine Jeemin Lee

Jasmine Jeemin LeeBy Anna J. ParkJasmine Jeemin Lee is a freelance Korean-English translator and interpreter. She grew up moving back and forth between Korea and the U.S., and graduated from Ewha Womans University Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation earlier this year. Having been always an avid reader, she began to translate literary works during graduate school: “I was fascinated by literary translation and had so much fun translating various Korean works including short stories and drama scripts into English.”She chose to translate novelist Kim Se-hee's short story “Still Days” as it resonated with her. “I liked how Kim turned a rather ordinary, mundane story into something that's highly relatable for readers,” she said. “I could very well put myself into the protagonist's shoes, and imagine how she must have felt as a first-time employee ― dealing with a difficult team manager and colleagues, working overtime in an empty office, and facing unexpected challenges at her very first workplace ― because I remembered the first time

Nov 12, 2019By Anna J. Park
Fiction Commendation Prize Winner: Jasmine Jeemin Lee

Fiction Commendation Prize: Still Days

Written by Kim Sehee and translated by Jasmine Jeemin Lee. Below is an excerpt of the winning translation. ― ED“Still Days” is one of a collection of short stories by Kim Sehee in her book published in 2019. Courtesy of MinumsaThe Sunday before my first day of work, I ran into Jaehwa at Daehangno Street. It was a cloudy afternoon, chilly and windy. I was twenty-six, and I had moped about in my studio flat until my head started to fill with so many useless thoughts about the next day that I had to go out for some air. I thought I might walk to Marronnier Park and do some window shopping. I'll talk to Mom on the phone at night and go to bed early.On the stairs leading to the subway station exit was a packed stream of people making their way up to the ground floor. As I floated past the crowd at the exit, I saw Jaehwa on the other side, waiting for someone. I knew Jaehwa from an English cram school―we used to be close, although she was older and already an office worker back then. There, in the middle of the pavement, we asked each other how we'd been, and I told her that I'

Nov 12, 2019
Fiction Commendation Prize: Still Days

Fiction Commendation Prize Winner: Grace Payer

Grace PayerBy Anna J. ParkGrace Payer grew up in Iowa, the United States and spent her middle school years in Korea. Later she studied at the University of Minnesota where she studied Korean, among other subjects. She is currently studying sociology at Seoul National University in Korea. She began various kinds of translation several years ago, thinking literary translation was something she would like to do in the remote future; she never felt she was prepared or worthy enough to actually do it. Upon reading novelist Kim Sa-gwa's writings, she took the dive into literary translation.“I found her short story collection '02' (Changbi, 2010) and read it over a few days during a dreary winter in Seoul. I was between semesters, tired and burnt out, but Kim Sa-gwa's writing help break me out of the monotony that I had fallen into,” Payer said. “In the titular story of that collection the narrator addresses the audience saying, 'I don't want you to read. I want you feel. I want you to feel this for a long time. You have to feel this for a long time.' Many of the stories i

Nov 12, 2019By Anna J. Park
Fiction Commendation Prize Winner: Grace Payer

Fiction Commendation Prize: Burial

Written by Kim Sagwa and translated by Grace Payer. Below is an excerpt of the winning translation. ― ED“Burial” is one of a collection of short stories published in Kim Sagwa's 2010 book “O2” / Courtesy of ChangbiIt begins like this: We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. Or, like this: Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank and having nothing to do. Or, like this: eating an American breakfast; thinly sliced cabbage and tomato, a thick beef patty, all stacked on a white bun; eating something greasy. The round plates arranged neatly on the table, the olives, bacon, pickles, and a can of Campbell's soup are all another name for Seoul. Seoul is the white flour bun on which a Cargill beef patty sits, and its other name is hell. It is hell is because it has no soul. The city is soulless, much like its people, and its landscape drapes without meaning. No longer is the passage of time indicated in the changing colors of the sky. The calendar points to it being fall, bu

Nov 12, 2019
Fiction Commendation Prize: Burial

Grand Prize Winner: Leo-Thomas Brylowski

Leo-Thomas BrylowskiBy Anna J. ParkGrowing up in Montreal, Canada, Leo-Thomas Brylowski is fluent in both English and French as his mother-tongues. During his undergraduate studies at the University of British Columbia (UBC), he spent two semesters at Seoul National University as an exchange student. Brylowski is now on a fellowship program at the Literature Translation Institute of Korea's (LTIK) Translation Academy which he began last year. He recalled Dr. Bruce Fulton, a renowned professor of Korean literature and translator of contemporary Korean fiction, as the most influential figure during his time at UBC who encouraged him to pursue studies in literary translation. “I first began translating Korean literature into English as part of a Korean class taught by Dr. Fulton in my final year. Three years have since passed, but I remember it like it was yesterday. The first story we were asked to translate was Kim Dong-in's 'Gamja.'” Brylowski translated novelist Lee Kiho's short story “Choe Mijin, Where Have You Gone?”; he was made aware of the author's works

Nov 12, 2019By Anna J. Park
Grand Prize Winner: Leo-Thomas Brylowski

Fiction Grand Prize Award: 'Choe Mijin, Where Have You Gone?'

Written by Lee Kiho and translated by Leo-Thomas Brylowski. Below is an excerpt of the winning translation. ― ED"Choi Mijin, Where Have You Gone?" is one of a collection of short stories published in novelist Lee Kiho's 2018 book. Courtesy of MunhakdongneIt all began around the middle of last month, while I was looking to buy myself an external hard drive. I accessed a classifieds website for second-hand merchandise, and that's when I stumbled upon someone who was selling a book of mine, a novel I'd published two years earlier. It had been put up for sale at a bargain price by an active member with the username “James Closetheshutters”. Along with my book, he was selling more than 50 other novels, and about 20-odd copies of quarterly literary journals. The books were grouped into three price categories ― 7000, 5000, and 4000 won. The back issues of the journals were being offered for 2000 won each. My book belonged to the 4000-won group. So much for my quest to buy an external hard drive, I began to carefully inspect, one by one, the items this “James Closethes

Nov 12, 2019
Fiction Grand Prize Award: 'Choe Mijin, Where Have You Gone?'
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