Will These Stories Ever Be the Same? A Korean Translator’s Misgivings, by Ha-yun Jung

Will These Stories Ever Be the Same? A Korean Translator’s Misgivings, by Ha-yun Jung Essay [email protected] Mon, 07/31/2023 - 17:32 Photo by Daniel Bernard / UnsplashA translator discovers that an author—whom she has translated and admired for so long—was complicit in a past administration’s efforts to silence dissenting writers. What does she find when, following her discovery, she revisits the author’s work? I had set out to write an ode. Oh Jung-hee was the first writer I ever wanted to translate; I am tempted to go so far as to say her writing was the reason I became a translator. But I am only one among a handful of translators who, over the past twenty years, have sought out opportunities to bring her stories to the English-speaking world. Oh, now in her late seventies, is, after all, one of the most influential Korean writers alive, whose writing has helped shape the country’s postwar modernist literature. However, despite the efforts of these translators, Oh has yet to be read widely around the world. I wanted to change this. I was gripped by a somewhat mysterious sense of responsibility to take on the role of a spokesperson, to help readers outside Korea see that she deserves to be read and discussed. But this plan took an unexpected turn when, on a morning in June, only a few days into an early draft of my essay, my newsfeed pulled up photos of a group of writers protesting outside the Seoul International Book... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'

[ World Literature Today | 2023-07-31 22:32:27 UTC ]

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