skip-navigation

한국문학번역원 로고

TOP

Korean Literature Now

KLN_만족도조사배너

KLN_만족도조사배너

Back to Interviews

Interview with Kim Haengsook: Living through One Hundred Years at Once scrap

by Kim Haengsookgo link Translated by Helen Chogo link September 1, 2019

Interview with Kim Haengsook: Living through One Hundred Years at Once 이미지 Interview with Kim Haengsook: Living through One Hundred Years at Once 이미지 Interview with Kim Haengsook: Living through One Hundred Years at Once

Author Bio 작가 소개

김행숙

Kim Haengsook

Kim Haengsook made her debut as a poet in 1999. She has authored the poetry collections Adolescence, The Goodbye Ability, The Meaning of Others, and A Portrait of an Echo. She has received the Nojak Literary Prize, Jeon Bonggeon Literary Award, and Midang Literary Award. She is a professor of Korean literature at Kangnam University and has served as a contributing editor for the journal, World Literature. Her poetry has appeared in English in Poems of Kim Yideum, Kim Haengsook & Kim Min Jeong (Vagabond Press, 2017).

KLN: How do you feel about participating in the Göteborg Book Fair 2019?

Kim: I travelled to Sweden before at the invitation of literary magazine 10TAL. But this is my first visit to Göteborg. This encounter with new readers and foreign languages will be an adventure for my poetry. I feel excited about discovering another linguistic texture. 

 

KLN: The five poems you’ve chosen for the Göteborg Book Fair 2019 all explore the notion of time. What is the overriding idea or image in them?

Kim: My topic for discussion is “In Human Time.” When I first got this topic, I was reminded of the 2014 Seoul International Writers’ Festival. At that event, I mistakenly said “Welcome to the 1914 Seoul International Writers’ Festival!” three times. One of the participating writers told me later that he felt as if he were staying in a hotel from a hundred years before. Humans can only exist in the present. However, I feel as if we could live through a hundred years at any given time because every moment is loaded with ancient memories. In Korea, the year 2014 was disrupted by many unforeseen moments, which reminded us of the division of the Korean peninsula, ideological conflict, colonization and Japanophilism. I realized that in the current era, I was living through a hundred years at once. This ‘time’ is not just my own but a collective one. In fact, there are many layers to this collective time, and Korea undergoes conflict among such layers—perhaps more acutely than any other country. My recent poetry collection, 1914, explores the theme of temporal communities (based on the ideas born out of my mistake at the Seoul International Writers’ Festival). I look forward to discussing this topic further at the book fair.

 

English subtitles translated by Helen Cho

 


Writer 필자 소개

Kim Haengsook

Kim Haengsook

Kim Haengsook made her debut as a poet in 1999. She has authored the poetry collections Adolescence, The Goodbye Ability, The Meaning of Others, and A Portrait of an Echo. She has received the Nojak Literary Prize, Jeon Bonggeon Literary Award, and Midang Literary Award. She is a professor of Korean literature at Kangnam University and has served as a contributing editor for the journal, World Literature. Her poetry has appeared in English in Poems of Kim Yideum, Kim Haengsook & Kim Min Jeong (Vagabond Press, 2017).

Translator 번역가 소개

Helen Cho

Helen Cho

is a freelance translator and interpreter based in Seoul. She received both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English literature from University College London, UK. She won the Korea Times’ 2015 Modern Korean Literature Translation Award and multiple translation grants from LTI Korea. In addition to literary works, she has translated numerous films, plays, and musicals

Did you enjoy this article? 별점

Did you enjoy this article? Please rate your experience

Send