Korean literature abroad

       In The Korea Times Claire Lee profiles LTI Korea director Kim Seong-kon, as he: 'speaks about the institution's current and future projects', in 'Understanding of classic literature required to understand contemporary literature' -- occasioned also by the recent publication of: 'a five-volume series of English translations of classic Korean literature in collaboration with The Korea Herald', which she introduces in a separate article, Murder, jealousy and lust.
       The collaboration with Dalkey Archive Press, the Library of Korean Literature-series -- several volumes of which are already under review at the complete review, most recently Jang Eun-jin's No One Writes Back -- is mentioned, but Kim also has bigger plans:

Starting next year, he is to make more pitches to overseas publishers, including Random House, Harper & Row and Simon & Schuster, to publish English translations of Korean literature.

"Once published by these publishers, it becomes relatively easier to get reviews from the major media outlets (in the U.S.) and more likely for the books to receive attention," Kim said.

       (I'm not sure who is advising him or where he gets his information, but 'Harper & Row' hasn't been the name of the publisher for nearly a quarter of a century, since the News Corp takeover of 1990 .....)
       Interesting, too, to hear that:

Up until this year, LTI Korea has been sending fully translated texts to foreign publishers instead of short summaries.

"We realized that takes too much time, energy and money," he said. "So we decided to just translate highlights from each novel and provide a brief summary. We think it'll be much more efficient and more appealing to overseas editors."

       (Of course, it's sad that American editors have to rely on served-up-to-them English translations to get any insight into the titles (i.e. that essentially none of them can read any of these languages).)
       Also interesting:

Kim also wants to see Korea's prominent authors have well-known translators who work exclusively with them and their works. Many celebrated Asian writers, including Haruki Murakami, Mo Yan and late Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata, each worked or are working with a single translator for English editions of their works, Kim said.

[...]

"Most of Kawabata's works were translated by Seidensticker," said Kim. "For Haruki Murakami, there is Jay Rubin of Harvard University. For Mo Yan, there is Howard Goldblatt. We need more excellent translators (working exclusively) for Korean writers and their works."

       Of course, that's an oversimplification -- and in Murakami's case flat-out not true, as Alfred Birnbaum and Philip Gabriel have certainly translated their fair share. (And having recently read Kawabata's The Sound of the Mountain in Seidensticker's translation, I can only say that those have gotten very creaky.)
       Still, it's good to see someone who is obviously very pro-active and trying out a lot of things -- indeed, there are a hell of a lot of countries that I wish were similarly active.