LTI Korea 
DLKL 
SIWF 
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LTI Korea Now
Kindred Seoul
I must begin with the bathtub. Perhaps it’s silly that a bathtub is where I want to start discussing a literary festival. But after a fourteen-hour flight from London, arriving in my hotel room and finding a stunning lion’s-foot bathtub felt like a minor miracle. Book tours are depleting spiritually, mentally, and physically, and it makes a big difference for the event host to consider authors as people. Out of so many literary festivals and book fairs I’ve participated in, Seoul International Writers Festival strikes me as by far the most people-oriented and author-centric event. Its goal is not just to sell or promote frontlist titles according to publication schedule, but to promote and celebrate authors, connect literary figures from across the globe, introduce international authors to Korean readers, and foster a closer conversation between Korean and world literature. On the surface, writers today seem more connected than ever through social media and ease of travel; but the truth is that there are few opportunities to truly get to know peer artists. At SIWF, I discussed the particularities of Tolstoy and writerly ambition (“Is it okay to want validation for one’s art?”) with Jonas Hassen Khemiri, the acclaimed Swedish-American novelist. I befriended the critic Nam Seung-won, whose intimate knowledge of writers and artists was an invaluable peek into the Korean literary world. I was touched by the warmth and sincerity of the Korean novelist Kim Soom and the Japanese poet Yumi Fuzuki. At the opening night’s panel, the iconic Chinese author Yan Lianke moved me with his answer to the question, “Are you driven to write in order to resist censorship?” Lianke’s reply was calm but firm. “I am not a ‘writer of censored books,’ and I am not interested in censorship,” he said. “I am first and foremost interested in human beings.” As an author, I think the fellowship with peer artists is one of the most important elements of a successful writing life. From a practical perspective, publishing depends so much on social networking, and this is true in every market, whether or not that’s “fair.” As books and careers cross borders, connections with diverse international writers can help grow one’s audience. But more crucially, writerly fellowship offers inspiration and affirmation. By its very nature, writing can be solitary and isolating work. Not only that, publishing tends to foster the myth of a lone genius; there is only one person’s name on the cover of a book; and authors all know who they are competing against in an award season. Individuality is constantly upheld and celebrated in publishing. Rarely do we get a chance to see the big picture of authors, each in their own way, committing themselves to the same task just as a drop of rain joins the great ocean. It is both sobering and uplifting to see that one is not alone in the sometimes overwhelming work of creation. This is why a highlight of SIWF was seeing my fellow authors at various panels. Another highlight was the interactive sensorial exhibits, interpreting our books through smell, sound, and sight. I was especially delighted by the perfume inspired by my novel, City of Night Birds: it is a creamy white floral with a tuberose heart. Thoughtful installations like these deepen the readers’ experience of our books. In an age when people have easy entertainment at their fingertips, I believe that books cannot be “Netflix in a print-out form.” The text has to be art, first and foremost, but other layers surrounding it—from a beautiful cover and interior design to exhibits like these—can increase the book’s value into something irreplaceable and worthy of cherishing. Speaking of cherishing, I came home from the festival with a lovely souvenir: the bottle of Eau de City of Night Birds. Every time I smell it, I am reminded of teahouses along Insa-dong street; hot baths to unwind in after panels and receptions; the passion and warmth of full-house audiences; conversations with artists; and autumn in Seoul, a captivating ancient capital and a global publishing mecca.
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Book Cart
They Said “Annyeong” / Whale Snows Down / A Nation of Youth / Maldduks
They Said “Annyeong”by Kim Ae-ran Munhakdongne, 2025, 320 pagesWhale Snows Downby Kim Bo-Young Rabbit Hole, 2025, 284 pagesIn her first short story collection in eight years, Kim Ae-ran presents seven razor-sharp stories that explore the concept of space: what it means to have it, to violate it, to lose it. In “House Party,” a tense get-together reveals the subconscious biases that lurk within the guests’ minds, while in “Good Neighbor,” the narrator is forced to confront their complex emotions when a family they’d always considered beneath them moves to a nicer apartment. These stories delve into how the spaces we occupy define not only how we live our lives, but also how systems and structures affect everyone in surprisingly different ways.In this imaginative and poignant collection, Kim Bo-Young meditates on the value of lost things and interrogates the very standard by which objects and organisms are assigned worth. The titular story “Whale Snows Down” (tr. Sophie Bowman) is narrated from the point of view of a deep-sea animal and shines a spotlight on the ecological destruction happening today. Kim also offers her unique take on topics such as death and AI in “Low-budget Project,” in which an indie game developer pro-cesses a collaborator’s death through an augmented reality game, and “Even If It Is Just a Shell,” in which the narrator’s digital self gets the chance to spend time with a deceased sibling. A Nation of Youthby Won-pyung Sohn Dazzling, 2025, 292 pages Maldduksby Kim Hong Hanibooks, 2025, 312 pagesWon-pyung Sohn, author of international hits such as Almond (tr. Sandy Joosun Lee) and Counterattacks at Thirty (tr. Sean Lin Halbert), returns with her newest full-length novel, A Nation of Youth. Welcome to Sycamore Island, a paradise for ultra-wealthy seniors. In Sohn’s imagined future, a manmade island in the middle of the South Pacific serves as a lavish enclave for the top 1% of retirees, where sprightly youth cater to their every need. When twenty-nine-year-old Yoo Nara is selected to work at the country’s largest senior care center, she sees it as her chance to finally leave her dreary life behind and achieve her dream of becoming an actress on Sycamore Island. A Nation of Youth grapples with timely topics such as declining birth rates, aging societies, and the effects of AI and accelerated innovation. The unanimous winner of the 2025 Hankyoreh Literary Award, Maldduks is an action mystery novel by Kim Hong. Legend has it that “maldduks” are “human stakes”—dead people who have been driven into the ground headfirst in the middle of the ocean. When they wash up on shore in droves one day, hapless loan underwriter Jang finds himself locked in a car trunk with no clue as to why. What follows is a string of mishaps and misfortunes as Jang slowly realizes that the only person he can count on is himself. What is the true identity of these maldduks and what do they want from the living? This page-turner of a tale offers an incisive take on capitalism and class.
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Reviews
[DUTCH] A Slice of Crypto Life: The Universal Charm of the Office Escape Plan
By the time readers reach the bottom of the first page of To the Moon, Jang Ryujin’s bestselling novel, they will already have slightly different impressions of the story’s setting, depending on whether they are reading the Dutch, English, or German translation. The English translator, Sean Lin Halbert, has omitted how long the protagonist Jeong Dahae has been working for the confectionery company Maron. The Dutch translator, Mattho Mandersloot, has explicitly placed her in the back seat of a taxi with her boss, while the other two versions simply note them taking a cab. These are minor discrepancies, but they do serve as a reminder that Korean reality is presented differently to foreign readers, depending on their language. This matters especially in this type of story. To the Moon is a slice-of-life novel, a genre that has become popular across the globe lately. It offers relatable stories about ordinary people with little drama or plot. Kang Eunsang, Kim Jisong, and Jeong Dahae are office workers at Maron, with few exciting tasks to fulfill. Then Eunsang, the most entrepreneurial of the three, decides to invest in cryptocurrency, figuring that the rate will keep rising. After some hesitation, Dahae follows her, while Jisong holds out for a long time, thinking it too risky. With this effective setup, Jang accomplishes two things at once. First, she characterizes the three women and their mutual relationships. All three dislike their jobs, but Eunsang leads the way in trying to get ahead in life. Dahae is the most thoughtful, hedging her bets, while Jisong’s timidity impedes her in bonding with her friends and taking (financial) initiatives. Second, the crypto business inserts some mild tension in the narrative: Will the three women succeed in multiplying their life savings, or will they lose everything? The story does not dwell much on crypto-currency except for the joy it evokes in the women as the price skyrockets. Rather, it describes some moderate office excitements and chores in a light-hearted tone that is at times funny, verging on slapstick, such as when Jisong spills the contents of her suitcase all over the floor of Jeju airport. The charm of slice-of-life novels lies in the reader’s familiarity with the setting and events: office life, dreams of being rich, the hunt for a more spacious apartment, a nice holiday. Authors of such novels must have a keen sense of what appeals to readers, as Jang clearly does. Much of what goes on in To the Moon has universal allure, like the obsession with what’s going on online, and conversations in trendy coffee shops that seem almost obligatory in slice-of-life novels. Inevitably, though, there are also elements that are distinctly Korean. For instance, to Korean readers, the simple mention of Jeju is likely enough to conjure images and perhaps memories of the subtropical island south of the mainland. Jang has little need to describe Jeju for her original audience. However, the English translator thought it wise to explicitly add that Jeju is an island. Dutch readers could be forgiven for thinking Jeju is a mainland beach resort. The Dutch edition is more faithful to the original text, while the English translator adapted the text to add context for non-Korean readers. As a result, the reading experiences of both translations differ in the way they convey Korea. Though the backdrop of Jeju may be experienced differently by readers of distinct nationalities, the three women’s trip to Jeju has recognizable components for those aspiring to be rich: a posh hotel with an infinity pool, luxury services, and voguish parties. The circumstances magnify the differences between the three. Eunsang relishes the holiday, but also displays her mean streak. Jisong is happy to go along, but is insecure about almost everything. Dahae is keeping her options open, while sympathizing with both her friends as they clash. Of course, everything ends well, in a fitting but not overtly remarkable way. To the Moon merrily accomplishes what it aims to do, offering a pleasant read to enjoy at your lunch break, a coffee shop, or perhaps, if you’re lucky, your infinity pool.
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Reviews
[SPANISH] Whale, an Overflowing Fable
Whale is an uncategorizable work. Straddling modern fable and choral satire, this original historical fiction set in postwar Korea follows the lives of three women in a remote village: Geumbok, a young dreamer in a male-dominated world; her daughter Chunhui, mute and gifted with enormous strength; and a one-eyed woman who can control bees with a whistle. Cheon Myeong-kwan depicts the fractures of a society that, following the destruction of war, enters a period marked by accelerated transformation, modernization, and the rise of capitalism. But he does so with mordacity and a great sense of humor, alternating hilarious episodes with grotesque and violent scenes that make up a mosaic as disconcerting as it is attractive. The title itself announces the novel’s ambition. While in the Western imagination the whale tends to inevitably evoke Moby Dick and the tragic obsession of Melville, Cheon’s whale takes on a different meaning. Here, it symbolizes the feminine desire to transcend the limitations imposed by patriarchy. Geumbok embodies that will to greatness, although her rise is accompanied by violence and indifference toward her own daughter, Chunhui. Their relationship, marked by misunderstanding, encapsulates much of the story’s emotional tension. The women are, in fact, the center of the plot, but they are not represented as docile figures or idealized heroines. They are complex, contradictory, and often grotesque characters that challenge the traditional canons. Each embodies distinct forms of resistance. These women, in their own way, demonstrate how to survive in a society that marginalizes them, and also how they in turn replicate the violence they have suffered. This polyphonic construction of the feminine is the antithesis of stereotype, and reinforces the idea that we find ourselves, above all, before a choral novel of women. Whale can also be interpreted as a metaphor for the recent history of Korea. The destiny of Pyeongdae, which goes from sparsely populated rural village to prosperous urban center with the arrival of the railroad, is akin to the fate of the American Wild West. The postwar economic development of Pyeongdae offered opportunities to those who dared to dream big, but was also characterized by labor exploitation and indifference toward worker safety. Cheon doesn’t idealize this process but rather shows the glow of prosperity as well as the crudeness of its foundation. In this way, the novel functions as a parable about the excesses of modernization and the resulting social fractures. In terms of its style, Whale oscillates between satirical and lyrical, humoristic and tragic. Its fragmented structure, with multiple plots and detours, may seem somewhat dispersed, but helps to construct a choral portrait. On occasion, the narrator questions the reader directly, introducing what is known as narrative interpellation, a device that creates complicity and irony, reminiscent of the playful tone of the chroniclers of Latin American magical realism. It is no accident that the novel evokes One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez: the fantastical and the surreal are not distant from reality but rather illuminate it with an unexpected critical force. Symbolism is another of the novel’s virtues. The Whale, the movie theater that Geumbok constructs in a cetacean form, the bricks that Chunhui makes with her own hands, the army of bees, Jumbo the elephant . . . All of these elements function as powerful symbols that express the social as well as intimate dimensions of the novel. As in magical realism, the symbols transcend the literal and give the narration a poetic density that amplifies its social critique. Whale is, definitively, an ambitious and brilliant novel that I recommend approaching with an open mind. Fierce, amusing, grotesque, and tragic, it offers a portrait of Korea that is at the same time a universal mirror of the tensions between modernization, power, and survival. Its continued relevance, two decades after its first publication in 2004, confirms its status as a contemporary classic. It is a work that surprises, disturbs, and dazzles, and that, like all great novels, leaves us with the certainty of having participated in something greater than the sum of its pages.
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Reviews
[TURKISH] Within the Shell of Silence: Reading Han Kang’s Your Cold Hands
Han Kang’s Your Cold Hands is a quiet exploration of absence where silence, memory, and the human body echo in tension. It does not aim to reveal what happened, but to linger within what has vanished. In this restrained yet unsettling work, Han continues her ontological inquiry: Is a human being defined by presence or by the trace they leave behind? Throughout her oeuvre—from the bodily metamorphosis of The Vegetarian to the spectral whiteness of The White Book—Han dismantles the idea of a complete self. In Your Cold Hands, she pushes further, interrogating what remains when identity dissolves. She describes identity not as a fixed core, but as something that can peel, harden, and fall away. At the center of the novel is an encounter between H, the narrator and woman writer, and Cang Unhyong, a male sculptor who has withdrawn from public life. After his disappearance, only his sculptures remain: pale plaster shells, fragmented limbs, headless torsos, hollow forms marked by his touch. The novel introduces no mystery to solve; instead, it shifts from biography to a deeper question of witnessing. The missing sculptor is less a character than a haunting question: Is a human being defined by flesh, or by the void left in their shape? The sculptures he leaves behind are monuments to vacancy. As the narrator observes one such piece, she realizes, “It was merely an imprint. It was no longer a hand.” Han refuses sensational violence. Instead, she cultivates an atmosphere of restrained terror—a quiet, suffocating dread lodged beneath the surface of speech. The sculptor’s art, marked by severed arms and emptied torsos, does not provoke horror through gore, but through incompletion. Their incompleteness is what disturbs. They suggest that the sculptor was not shaping bodies but removing what could no longer be held within them. These figures seem arrested between existence and erasure. “A shell containing a deeper shell,” the narrator reflects, capturing the recursive, hollowed nature of identity itself. The absence of dramatic confrontation between the narrator and the sculptor is deliberate. Their connection is simply built on what remains unspoken. Stripped of confession or resolution, this relationship underscores Han’s aesthetic ethic: literature’s only role is to witness, not console. As the narrator senses the lack of vitality marking the sculptor’s creations, she uneasily notes, “My skin still bristled.” In front of the sculptor’s hollow forms, she encounters the deepest human recoil: the terror of one’s own emptiness. Han frames absence as testimony. The sculptor vanishes through gradual subtraction—becoming less seen, less spoken of, until he exists only as a rumor. His sculptures, too, refuse closure. They do not tell stories of who these figures were but insist on what is missing. The novel thus shifts the burden of meaning from the artist to the witness. It asks not, “What happened to him?” but rather, “Will you dare to see this void?” In this way, absence becomes a form of testimony. Cang’s sculptures do not tell us who he was. They ask whether it is still possible to be present through what has been abandoned. Can a person exist solely through the shell they leave behind? Han does not answer. Instead, she maintains the silence in which such questions echo. This is a story of endurance—of that which persists even after intention, voice, and form are gone. This haunting inquiry elevates Your Cold Hands beyond narrative into an inquiry into ontology. Han suggests that human existence may be less a continuous presence than a succession of disappearances—each leaving behind a trace, a crease, a cold surface. Her artistry lies not in offering answers but in sustaining the silence where such questions reverberate. In the end, the novel leaves only an echo: Perhaps to be human is never to be whole, but merely to endure as something slowly cooling—an imprint awaiting either touch or forgetting. Han Kang constructs no monument to the self; she uncovers its sarcophagus. What we encounter is a silence that breathes.
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Reviews
[JAPANESE] Punishment and Crime: A Socially-Conscious Mystery Novel
When I heard that Chang Kang-myoung had published a mystery novel, I was a bit surprised. While his previous works have spanned a wide range of genres, mysteries are a territory all their own, with their own unique philosophy that mustn’t be ignored. They require trickery and alibis so as not to disappoint readers’ expectations. I found myself slightly anxious as I picked up 罰と罪 (Punishment and Crime), the new Japanese translation of Chang’s Jaesusa (Reinvestigation), simply because he wasn’t a professional mystery writer. Would I be able to read this new novel with the same high hopes I have whenever one of his new books comes out? What would I do if I found myself disappointed? But once I started reading, I saw that my concerns were unfounded. The plot follows Detective Yeon Ji-hye of the Seoul Metropolitan Police’s Violent Crime Unit and her team as they reopen a twenty-two-year-old murder case. The crime happened in Sinchon. The victim was Min So-rim, a beautiful college student. Someone’s bodily fluids were found on her body, and security footage captured a suspicious person. Yet despite the evidence, no suspects were arrested, and the case remained unsolved. Upon reopening the case, Yeon Ji-hye questions members of the Dostoevsky book club So-rim belonged to, her English conversation teacher, and the young boy she tutored, but still cannot track down a suspect. Then, at the end of her obsessive search, Ji-hye notices an inconsistency in the testimony of a certain individual. And when she does, her life is also put in danger. Who was the killer, and why did they murder So-rim? The odd-numbered chapters are told from the perspective of the murderer, and the even-numbered ones depict the investigation led by Ji-hye and the other detectives. By alternating between the thoughts of the pursued and the realities of the pursuer, the reader is granted a bird’s-eye view of the chase, a thrilling cat-and-mouse game that will leave you breathless. The novel begins with a soliloquy from the murderer reflecting on the crime they committed twenty-two years ago. This criminal—a self-proclaimed “mirror image” of Raskolnikov from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment—fears and comes into conflict with not their own guilty conscience, but the punishment they will face after arrest (in other words, the criminal justice system). Dostoevsky’s works are masterpieces that intertwine deep reflections on the society of their time with careful portrayals of their characters’ psychology, depicting human truths and contradictions. The references to Dostoevsky’s novels make these glimpses into the killer’s twisted understanding of their crime all the more striking. Ultimately, the interpretation of any work is up to the reader, but Chang’s criminal employs an arguably self-centered interpretation of events to analyze and concoct a logical justification for their crime. Not only is this novel enjoyable for its story, but also for the way it leaves one pondering whether this criminal could really be a sort of Raskolnikov, once the entire picture becomes clear. The greatest pleasure of reading a mystery novel is, of course, solving its riddle. Mysteries often employ the “whodunit,” “howdunit,” or “whydunit” approach, and this work falls primarily into the “whodunit” category. In other words, it is mostly concerned with tracking down the criminal. And in such a novel, the author must provide sufficient hints for the reader to identify the criminal. On this front, I am left with some doubt as to whether there were enough clues left for the reader. But actual criminal investigations do not always have sufficient evidence to track down a criminal and frequently wind up heading off course. The reality of just such an investigation hitting a rough patch is portrayed with such care and detail that the novel made me feel as if I was watching a police documentary. Chang spent a year interviewing multiple police officers in order to write this book. His careful research underpins the reality of these depictions of the police world. The Japanese translation also deserves special mention. It is both true to the original and reads very smoothly. Unnatural Japanese would keep readers from immersing themselves in the work. Of course, a natural translation speaks to the translator’s ability, and the Japanese translation maintains a quick tempo, reading as though it were originally written in Japanese. Police jargon and abbreviations are marked with rubi characters, a technique that effectively gets across both the unique flavor of the police world and the tension of working in the field. Not only is the story engaging, but the skillful translation is captivating in its own right. There are still very few Korean mystery novels that have been translated into Japanese. Punishment and Crime will offer readers of Japanese a refreshing, new reading experience. translated by Kalau Almony
