Latest news with #CursedBunny
Korea Herald
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
Overseas sales of translated Korean books hit record high after Nobel win
Sales of translated Korean literature overseas rose significantly last year from a year ago, amid heightened attention following Han Kang's Nobel Prize win, a state agency said Wednesday. According to the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, 1.2 million copies of agency-supported Korean books were sold worldwide in 2024, up a whopping 130 percent on-year. The average sales per book hit a record high of 1,271 copies. Among them, 45 books sold more than 5,000 copies each, with 24 books surpassing the 10,000-copy mark. The agency attributed the surge to Han Kang's Nobel Prize in literature for 2024. Sales of her 19 translated books rose fivefold, reaching 150,000 copies compared to 30,000 in 2023. Other novels also showed solid performances overseas, including Chung Bora's "Cursed Bunny," which was shortlisted for both the International Booker Prize and the National Book Award, Park Sang-young's "Love in the Big City" and Cho Nam-joo's "Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982." LTI Korea said the expanding readership in North America and Europe has encouraged foreign publishers to "more actively introduce Korean books," adding that these publishers' "distribution channels and marketing power highly enhanced overseas access to Korean literature." (Yonhap)
Korea Herald
29-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
From translator to novelist, Anton Hur is now the one translated — by one of his authors
After years of introducing Korean literature to English readers, from Bora Chung's 'Cursed Bunny' to Park Sang-young's 'Love in the Big City,' Anton Hur has crossed the literary bridge in the opposite direction, debuting as a novelist with 'Toward Eternity,' translated into Korean. Written in English and first published in the US last year, the book now arrives in Korea in translation by none other than Chung -- whose books Hur translated into English, including the International Booker-shortlisted 'Cursed Bunny,' 'Your Utopia,' 'Red Sword' and 'Midnight Timetable' (to be published this September). 'It is an extraordinary honor when a translator approaches a writer first,' Hur said at a press event in Seoul on Monday. 'Translation means devoting a part of your energy to someone else's work. As a translator myself, I've often wished someone would translate my book because I know that translation is both an act of sacrifice and of great honor.' Hur recalled Chung telling him, 'Even if it kills me, I want to translate this.' 'And I thought, 'She's so busy, how will she have time to do this?' But I was deeply grateful,' he said. 'She translated it so well that it no longer feels like my book, which is how it should be. English and Korean are such different languages that if my book still felt like my own in Korean, something would be wrong.' Set in a near future where a new therapy replaces human cells with nanobots that cure disease and make them virtually immortal, the novel takes the form of a diary spanning multiple millennia. Its entries shift between an ailing human who undergoes nanobot therapy and an AI that reads poetry, plays music and loves others — all the while probing the question: What does it mean to be human? 'The word 'human' in Korean itself is fascinating,' Hur said. 'In Korean, it literally means 'between people.' Our ancestors called this humanity. It's not something you create alone; humanity exists between people, not within one person. That's what I wanted to explore in this book — that our humanity comes not from ourselves but from others.' Much of 'Toward Eternity' was drafted longhand during his daily commute to his studio. 'There's something about the rhythm of the subway wheels on the rails — words start flowing unconsciously,' Hur said. 'When you write by hand, there's a slight delay between thought and word, and in that gap, so many ideas come alive. All of literature comes from that space.' Hur said he plans to write more novels while continuing his work as a translator. 'I guess the big difference is that as a novelist, once your book is out, you don't have to keep working to earn from it — unlike translation, where the real work begins the moment you sign the contract,' he joked. 'But there are still so many works I want to translate,' Hur added. 'Korea's literary scene is incredibly rich. There are so many talented young writers and mid-career authors with a real experimental spirit. People love, critique and care deeply about Korean fiction, which gives me endless books I want to translate.'
Korea Herald
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
Park Sang-young and Bora Chung to meet with Swedish readers
Two internationally recognized novelists, Park Sang-young and Bora Chung, are to meet with readers in Sweden at Korean Literature Week events organized by the Korean Cultural Center Sweden. On Monday, Park will meet local readers at Kulturhuset, a cultural complex in Stockholm, following a screening of "Love in the Big City," a film adaptation of his book starring Kim Go-eun and Noh Sang-hyun. The event will be moderated by Kim Eun-ah, who translated the book into Swedish. On Wednesday, Chung will appear on Solen, a literary live podcast hosted by Stockholm librarians, to celebrate the Swedish release of her novel "Cursed Bunny." Later that day, she will join her English-language translator, Anton Hur, in a discussion of the book at Soderbokhandeln, Sweden's oldest independent bookstore. Both authors will also take part in Littfest, Sweden's largest literary festival, March 13-15. Park was longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2022 for "Love in the Big City," while Chung was shortlisted the same year for "Cursed Bunny." Both novels were translated into English by Hur.
