LTI Korea 
DLKL 
SIWF 
Table of Contents
Bookshelf
From The Translator’s Desk
Cover Features
Featured Writer
Bookmark
Reviews
- [Featured Review] The Body We Call Our Own
- [English] The Beginning of a Fantasy Classic: Why the World of The Bird That Drinks Tears Is Worth Falling For
- [English] Pop Culture Goes Political
- [English] Two Women Living Together Is a World
- [English] If Anyone Could Kill
- [Turkish] When Grief Takes Shape
LTI Korea Now
Introduction
As I sit writing this editorial, the summertemperature in Korea is making headlines. In Yangsan, Gyeongsangnam-do, thetemperature recently hit an all-time record high of 42.5 degrees Celsius. Allsummer long, record-shattering heat waves have been rippling across the Koreanpeninsula. Global warming is only one indicator of a world seemingly out ofbalance, hurtling toward a fearful future. In all sectors of Korean society,people talk incessantly about the AI revolution and how AI is going to changeour lives, for better or for worse. What does it mean to be “human” in this ageof seismic change? And how might we reconceptualize our “human” modes of livingamong “nonhumans,” be they oceans and trees, nonhuman animals, or artificialintelligences?
For ourfall special feature, we invited Bae Myung-hoon and Kim Mella, two acclaimedwriters who have been making waves in Korean fiction, to comment on therelations between humans and nonhumans in the contemporary world. In hissatirical science fiction, Bae Myung-hoon has written about skyscrapers oversix hundred floors tall, frozen bodies, robots, and cosmic wanderers. KimMella’s fiction, on the other hand, teems with insects, animals, and speakingobjects. Their essays invite us to ponder and reimagine our relationship to thenonhumans with whom we share this earth. For Bae, the distinction between humanand nonhuman continues to be important; Kim, on the other hand, is interestedin the moments when this dichotomy dissolves or breaks down.
Ourfeatured writer this fall is Sou Linne Baik. Ever since her first collection ofshort stories, Falling in Paul (2014), Baik has been noted for writingabout Koreans studying, living, or traveling abroad, meeting strangers, andlearning new languages. A scholar and translator of French literature, Baik isespecially adept at handling cultural and linguistic differences and crossings.Her story “Brown Sugar Candy,” translated here for the first time, is a storyabout an older Korean woman’s brief romance in France. I read it in onedelectable sitting and think you will, too.
In ourBookmark section, we always try to bring you challenging new fiction andpoetry. Cheon Seonran and Kim Chaewon are two outstanding young writers who arepushing back the boundaries of realist fiction. Cheon writes about a futuristicworld where people no longer communicate through sounds; Kim’s story features acurious set of guardian creatures whose identity will keep you guessing. Thesestories, like the poems of Song Jin Gwon and Song Huiji, attest to new energiesand strains in Korean literature today.
