LTI Korea 
DLKL 
SIWF 
Translating in Four Hands scrap
by Pierre Bisiou
November 26, 2025
KLN Hello, Mr. Bisiou. We’re very pleased to meet you. We know you’ve translated Han Kang, Miye Lee, Kim Hye-jin, You-jeong Jeong, and other Korean writers into French. Could you tell us about your work as a translator?
PB In France, for many years now, Korean literature has been translated by pairs. One person is a native in the Korean language; the other is a native in French. The Korean native works on a translation draft; the French native then reviews and polishes the translation. The resulting translation is a work of four hands.
My partner is Ms. Choi Kyungran, who has co-translated more than forty books with various collaborators. For the past fifteen years, I’ve had the honor of being her translation partner
KLN How did you two meet?
PB It was a coincidence. She was already a translator; I was a publisher. We happened to be neighbors in Paris. I walked past her windows every day to get to my place, as we shared the same courtyard. We got to know each other thanks to our landlord, and one day she asked me if I would be interested in translating Korean novels with her, as the person she had been working with until then had left Paris. I think that must have been in 2012. It was the beginning of a wonderful experience.
KLN Could you tell us about how you work with Choi Kyungran?
PB Sure. My partner begins the process by producing a preliminary translation in French. Then I sit down at my desk. On my computer, two documents are open. On the left, my colleague’s translation, and on the right, a blank page.
Day by day, I rewrite the book in its entirety, to give it a truly literary form. Once that is done, Ms. Choi and I go back and forth many times, having long discussions to refine my choices. She constantly makes sure that I never betray the original text.
My challenge, my duty is to produce a French text that is as literary as possible, while remaining most respectful and faithful to the original. Translation is for me a matter of concentration and intuition. Above all, it is a passion.
KLN Your co-translations with Choi Kyungran have received many prizes. In particular, Impossibles Adieux (in English, We Do Not Part) received the Prix Médicis Étranger and the Prix Émile Guimet, two very distinguished prizes awarded in France. Impossibles Adieux was also shortlisted for the Prix Femina Étranger. Could you tell us about your experience translating Han Kang?
PB As I already mentioned, I was a publisher before I became a translator. My publishing house, Le Serpent à Plumes, published four of Han Kang’s novels. We started with La Végétarienne (The Vegetarian), then Celui qui revient (Human Acts), Leçons de grec (Greek Lessons), and finally Blanc (The White Book). This gave us the opportunity to invite Han Kang to France on several occasions. It was so great to meet her.
Our first meeting took place in 2016. Korea was the guest of honor at the Paris Book Fair. We were a small independent publishing house at the time, with limited means, but we did our best to welcome her warmly. I remember we took her to the theater. She was always endlessly patient. And during the book signing sessions at the book fair, the public was completely charmed by her. Seeing all those wonderful encounters, we knew we were incredibly lucky to be working with such a person. It was both deeply rewarding and moving. Each time she returned, the same magic happened again.
However, the book sales were not very good. My publishing house, Le Serpent à Plumes, was bought by a group that was later acquired by an even bigger one. In 2019, those people told me they no longer wanted to publish books “that don’t sell,” and they shut down my house. I lost everything. That’s life!
KLN We’re so sorry to hear that!
PB The truth is that we had no success during those early years. It was incredibly difficult to promote an unknown Korean author (I published La Végétarienne before her success in the UK). When Han Kang came over, I had the hardest time finding even one journalist to interview her. I sold 700 copies of my hardcover edition of La Végétarienne in 2015. Ten years later, her publisher sold more than 80,000 copies of Impossibles Adieux (We Do Not Part). Everything has to start somewhere— even fame.
KLN One last question: what advice would you give to ensure that Korean authors continue to be translated worldwide, into more and more languages?
PB I think it would be great to see more translation duos from all over the world. Four hands are more fun than two!
Writer 필자 소개
Pierre Bisiou
Pierre Bisiou worked as a publisher and editor for over thirty years. Alongside Choi Kyungran, he has translated about fifteen Korean books, including novels by Han Kang, Cho Nam-Joo, Bora Chung, and Sang Young Park. Since November 2020, he has been posting daily drawings about his activities on Instagram and Facebook, as editeur_croqueur. He lives in France, in La Madeleine de Nonancourt.
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