Embracing and Looking After Our Wounds: New Book Releases from November and December 2024 scrap download
상처를 끌어안고 돌보는 우리들, 11-12월 신간 도서입니다.
「KLWAVE is constantly striving to introduce global readers to a diverse range of Korean literary works. The following titles, published in November and December 2024, were selected among works featured on the Kyobo Book Centre’s “Book of the Month” and Aladin’s “Magician’s Choice” lists.」
We are suddenly struck by a strange yet familiar scent as we walk down the street absentmindedly. Rushing in from who knows where, a biting wind heavy with the smell of winter has found its way to us. The cold makes us hunch and stirs our hearts, still unprepared to face the new season. But instead of urging ourselves to toughen up, we firmly resolve to embrace the wounds we carry within us. And as we wait for the passing of the frigid season and spring’s triumphant return, we reflect on the meaning of “solidarity.”
The new Korean literature releases from November and December 2024 selected by KLWAVE include two poetry collections, one essay collection, and a special edition book set featuring three novels by Han Kang along with some of the author’s very own handwritten notes. Beyond acknowledging, understanding, and showing empathy — it’s about embracing and tending to each other’s wounds. Striving for a future rooted in solidarity. We believe that’s where the beauty of all that is fragile lies.
Praised for her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life,” Han Kang’s time to shine has finally come. No discussion of winter 2024 would be complete without mentioning her Nobel Prize in Literature. As the cool spring air meets with the gradually warming rays of the sun, now is the ideal time to reflect on Han Kang’s remarkable journey.
In her Nobel Prize lecture, titled “Light and Thread,” Han Kang confessed that “being able to dwell between very important and urgent questions” was in itself worth more than any novel she ever wrote or the time it took her to write it. She explained how, after wrestling with countless questions and emerging from the creative process, she found herself transformed, and how this transformation would naturally carry her into her next work. This is why Han Kang’s novels are best understood as part of a continuum linking past, present, and future.
The Han Kang Special Edition Book Set brings together three of her novels — I Do Not Bid Farewell, The White Book, and Black Deer — along with a limited-edition copy of some of the author’s handwritten notes. Including her debut novel, an autobiographical work she recommended in a recent interview, and her latest title, this three-book set invites readers on a special journey into Han Kang’s literary universe. As we follow the traces of her writing, we find that all the questions she has explored ultimately lead back to a single word: love. Carrying us forward into the next season, this word lets us picture the world we are bound to reach — one filled with love.
“The winter traveler trusts their journey more than the summer traveler / Walking on a frozen path beneath cold stars / They know that they are bound to reach spring […] This is why the poet writes not for the summer traveler but the winter traveler, for the traveler who walks not through the day but through the night” (Excerpt from I Got by Fine Without Poetry Before Meeting You)
In his latest work, poet Ryu Shiva presents 93 new poems for the winter traveler braving an especially cold season. There is something both absurd and endearing in the idea that poetry exists because of the existence of a “you,” with each poem holding the quiet promise of being revisited time and again between the one who writes it and the one who reads it.
Ryu Shiva’s latest poetry collection, I Got by Fine Without Poetry Before Meeting You, continues to explore the complex emotional dimensions of love by building on his previous works such as I Miss You Even Though You Are Next to Me, The Love of the One-Eyed Fish, and Love as If You’ve Never Been Hurt Before. This title invites readers to fully embrace the possibilities inside them and imagine a new tomorrow, regardless of who they are.
If we could exist alone, what need would there be for poetry? Through this work, readers may come to realize that the condition for their own existence may be rooted in the existence of others.
Sorrow is something we all carry, though its weight is different for each of us. At times, it can feel unbearably miserable and lonely, but healing becomes possible when we acknowledge each another’s wounds and extend a comforting hand. Lee Seokwon, who touched many readers with his heartfelt confessions in An Ordinary Being and Words That Are Always Good to Hear, returns with a poignant exploration of the sorrow that accompanies family partings. He asks the question — isn’t life filled with moments that strike without warning only to shatter our world and uproot our existence?
Time begins to flow differently for each family member after their father suddenly falls ill. As they silently witness the slow but inevitable approach of an uncertain farewell, they cannot help but be reminded of the void within themselves. We carefully recommend this book to anyone who may be grieving an “unexpectedly long day,” perhaps even blaming themselves for whatever has unfolded. Our hope is that by stepping into the life of another, they may come to understand the shape of their own sorrow.
No matter what emotions fill the hours of daylight, night never fails to come. Even faced with snow deep enough to swallow their every step, there are those who press forward with their gaze fixed ahead.
Kim Yi-deum’s ninth poetry collection, Doesn’t Everyone Write Masterpieces at Night, embraces those who are restless and imperfect. Following the poet’s gaze, which brings into focus the small, overlooked figures standing at the margins of society, readers are led to realize that “the place where we’ve come from, which we’ve long forgotten” (“Black Ice”) might in fact hold the promise of a new destination. The poet reminds us that as long as we keep moving forward in life, we are bound to encounter love along our path.
This is why we don’t have to be at the mercy of misfortune, even when sorrow threatens to swallow our lives. Although “storms may strike that land from time to time [...] may your world always feel like spring despite the crashing waves.” (“Spring-Oido”)
Translated by Leo-Thomas Brylowski
Leo-Thomas Brylowski is a freelance translator based in Seoul. His translation of a short story by author Lee Kiho earned him the Grand Prize at the 2019 Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards, and he is the recipient of a LTI Korea grant for the translation of a novel by up-and-coming author Park Young which he aims to get published in the near future. His translations have appeared in a number of literary journals and magazines, and a co-translation of a poetry collection by prominent poet Kim Haengsook entitled Human Time is forthcoming at Black Ocean in 2023.
More Content Like This
