KLN at Ten

Korean Literature Now (KLN) has played an important part inintroducing Korean literature to international readers in the tenyears since it launched in fall 2008 as _list: Books from Korea. For example,Han Kang, who won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016 forThe Vegetarian, has been featured regularly in KLN since 2011, throughinterviews, book reviews, essays, and excerpts. We have also published thelatest writers to come under the global spotlight, including Lee Seung-U,Bae Su-ah, Pyun Hye-young, Jeong You-jeong, and Kim Un-su.To celebrate the tenth anniversary of KLN, we have put together a specialissue for Korean literature lovers around the world. Ten unfamiliar, yetrefreshing writers and their works await you.The five stories presented in this anniversary special reflect the truly widespectrum of subject matter, styles, and perspectives that Korean fiction has tooffer. In “While They Laughed,” Yoon Sung-hee sketches the hopeless lives ofKorean youth who are falling behind in the rat race. But she turns the storyon its head with humor and breezy prose, as if to say, “Depending on how youlook at it, this isn’t a big deal. Don’t be so sad.” In “Raptors Upstream,” HwangJungeun quietly and delicately relates the everyday humiliations that goodpeople suffer in their weary lives, but does not let her readers feel mortified forthem. “Snowman” by Seo Yoo Mi is a Kafkaesque allegory that ridicules theoppressive realities of working and commuting, those universal requirementsKLN at TenFOREWORD8for modern-day survival. Jung Young Su’s “Traces of Summer” relies heavily onchance and subjectivity to introduce times and places, but Jung’s engaging styleand narrative have the power to keep readers hanging on to his every word. In“Carol,” a story about a lyricist whose lyrics have dire consequences, Lee JaeRyang questions whether rational and moral arguments measure up againstreality and takes her investigation to extremes. This thriller of a tale will keepyou on the edge of your seat.The poetry presented here shows how fiercely Korean poets agonize overand love the realities of their homeland, how desperately they wish for peopleto lead happy, beautiful lives through literature. Shin Cheolgyu meditates ondeath without sentimentalizing it; Kim Min Jeong invokes names and scenesthat, despite their concrete reality, are considered taboo under the tyranny ofethics and morality; Seo Hyoin casts a humorous yet cynical gaze on the manyfacets of the world around us; Song Kyung-dong resists money and politicalviolence by writing poems that he etches into every corner of his body, poemsthat he cries out with every muscle; Song Chanho composes short, but deeplyevocative lyric poetry set in the world of Korean folklore.These ten writers and works were not chosen arbitrarily. We asked tenrenowned Korean writers and literary critics to each pick one author andwork from the last decade that they would like to recommend to internationalreaders. We thank them for their thoughtful contributions, and hope thereaders will enjoy this collection as a special gift. It will give you a taste of thevariety and dynamism of today’s Korean literary scene.That being said, we don’t believe Korean literature is confined to the Seoulcentric literature currently coming out of South Korea—though this branch ofliterature is crucial no doubt—nor to elite literature for that matter. It is onlyright that we should include within our purview Korean-language literaturefrom all corners of the peninsula, Korean-language literature by overseasFOREWORD9Koreans, and more broadly, foreign-language literature about Korean subjectswritten by second- and third-generation members of the diaspora. Broadeningour perspective as such is a literary attempt to rise above the tragic division ofKorea, forge unity in the Korean diaspora, and rediscover Korean literature inits totality.We are also committed to expanding the temporal boundaries of Koreanliterature; contemporary literature, which settled in this land a century agothrough contact with the West, is enormously important in its own right,but it must be understood in relation to Korea’s traditional literary heritagespanning five millennia. The potential of traditional literature—including thevast body of texts written in literary Chinese, oral literature, sijo, and otherforms of classical poetry—should be channeled into new creative endeavorsunder the banner of Korean literature.We at LTI Korea have the duty to restore Korean literature to its spatialand temporal whole and present it to readers worldwide. In sharing Koreanliterature with the rest of the world and gaining a better understanding of oneanother, we, together with the global community, must seek how humanitycan live with value.Thank you to the many writers, translators, scholars, and readers who haveloved and cherished Korean literature and accompanied us in our journey overthe past decade. We promise to redouble our efforts in the decade to come. 

Kim sa-in

President, LTI Korea