Korean literature was first introduced to foreign countries in the late 19th century. However, it wasn’t until after works of Korean literature started receiving literary awards abroad that they were translated and published full-scale in foreign countries, attracting foreign readers and grabbing the interest of major publishers and publishing agencies in foreign countries.

Some awards have been given to works of Korean literature since the early 2000s, but ever since Please Look After Mom by Shin Kyung-Sook received the Man Asian Literary Prize, works of Korean literature have continuously been winning literary prizes, and the number of those prizes have been increasing as well.

Since 2012, when Castella by Park Min-Gyu received the Japan Translation Award in 2015, and The Vegetarian by Han Gang was the winner of the Man Booker International Prize in 2016, interest in Korean literature has grown. After these works received literary awards, foreign media have actively started providing reports on Korean literary works and Korean authors. Also, an increasing number of readers have been showing interest in Korean literature ever since.
This naturally led to Korean literary works of various genres getting translated into many different languages and published in lots of foreign countries. It also led to the establishment of foreign publishing agencies and foreign publishers. Moreover, there has been an increasing number of foreigners who receive educational training at the translating academy of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea to go on and work as professional translators in the field, due to their interest in translating Korean literature that is something more than the kind of interest a foreign reader of Korean literature displays.
The following shows works of Korean literature that have received literary awards and those works that have been published in other countries since after 2012.

Korean Works That Received Foreign Literary Awards After 2012

 

The Vegetarian by Han Kang, the 2016 Man Booker International Award award-winner, established a range of foreign readers of Korean literature. The publication rights were sold to 25 countries worldwide, as a sequence novel written from a sensual perspective about a woman who resists violence and eliminates desire amidst destructive lives.
Diary of a Murderer by Kim Young-Ha has successively received good reviews from German media. It clearly displays the abyss of a human being through an extreme process of dementia in which memory loss leads to the dissolution of personality. Also, the German news Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and radio broadcast, “Deutschlandfunk” both selected the work as the best mystery novel of April, 2020.

The Crime Writer Association Dagger winner, The Disaster Tourist: A Novel (Minumsa) by Yoon Go-Eun, was listed as one of 12 recommended books you must read in Time in August of 2020. The UK’s The Guardian and other foreign media, evaluated it as an interesting eco-thriller that re-examined the relationship between climate change and world capitalism. Also, it is seen as a gloomy satire novel on capitalism that shakes the pandemic generation.

Due to the news of Korean winners of foreign literary awards, other works in Korean literature are getting the spotlight from major foreign press. The recent works that got the spotlight from foreign presses include Untold Night and Day by Bae Su-Ah, Seven Years of Darkness and The Good Son by Jeong You-Jeong, The Plotters by Kim Un-Su, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo, ALMOND by Son Won-Pyeong, etc.

Recent Korean Literary Works Grabbing the Interest of Foreign Press

 

The Plotters by Kim Un-Su has been nominated for the French mystery literature award. A prominent American publisher, Doubleday, paid a large sum of deposit in 2018 to buy the copyright of this novel. Afterward, in 2019, it was selected as the “Best Winter Thriller” by New York Times (United States), and its copyright was sold in 20 different countries.

ALMOND by Son Won-Pyeong, which sold more than 100,000 copies in Japan, was selected as the Best Book of May 2020 by Amazon (United States). In addition, it was the first out of the Asian countries to receive the Best Translated Book Award given to works in bookstores of Japan.

Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo, portrays the mental scars a woman gets from society’s contempt. It was nominated for France’s Emile Gimet Prize for Asian Literature, published in 26 countries worldwide, and at least 600,000 copies were sold. Also, it portrays how the issue of discrimination against women and the pain they go through is observed.

Moreover, many works of Korean literature winning literary awards have added the effect of being the starting point in making dramas or movies based on Korean literature.

Not only has there been an increase visibly in the encouragement of Korean literature from a variety of sources in foreign countries, but the political, social, and general topics of humanity have touched the hearts of many people worldwide and show that this connection is gradually expanding.

Thus, one can say that Korean literature is being recognized for its literary value and popular appeal through the awards it’s getting from foreign countries. This means that Korean literature now is not merely “Korea’s literature,” but is being recognized as “a part of world literature.”

The Literature Translation Institute of Korea and Arirang International Broadcast are running a program titled “Exploring Korean Literature” starting from August and ending in December. This program aims to provide a chance for people around the world to experience the recently hot trending Korean literary works more closely. This program can be watched on YouTube (www.youtube.com/c/KltiOrKr), and is expected to comfort the minds of people worldwide, who are facing struggles living in a world with COVID-19.

“Exploring Korean Literature” Scheduled Broadcast

 

Written by Kwak Hyeon-Ju (Translation Education Director of Literature Translation Institute of Korea)