VOL.74/2024.09

12 Years of Publishing Korean Books in Vietnam

2022.06.07

Nha Nam is one of the leading literary book publishing companies in Vietnam, and one of our main goals is to introduce the world's literary works to Vietnamese readers. Since our founding in 2005, Nha Nam has purchased the rights to many works from the UK, France, USA, Germany, Canada, China, and Japan and accomplished certain achievements. However, at the time, although we were keen to publish Korean books, we had quite a few difficulties finding books and contacting Korean copyright owners. Moreover, we did not have much information about Korean literature, nor did we have editors who could read and translate Korean. We could only refer to information through other languages such as English, French or Chinese. At that time, although not many Korean literary books were published, Korean dramas were widely known in Vietnam, so we decided to experiment with the book that had been adapted into the drama Coffee Prince (EyeNHeart), which was very popular with Vietnamese audiences. However, we could not publish the book because the proprietor demanded a much higher royalty than we could afford for the average book in the Vietnamese market.

It wasn't until 2009 that a representative of Nha Nam attended the Beijing Book Fair and was fortunate to meet Imprima (Korean agency) Korea's representative, Mr. Joseph Lee (the founder of the KL Management agency). Mr. Lee is knowledgeable about Korean literature as well as the Korean book market, and introduced us to numerous well-written and interesting books. After that meeting in Beijing, with Mr. Lee's help, we acquired the rights to two greatly valuable literary works, Shin Kyung Sook's Please Look After Mom (Changbi) and Kim Yong Ha's I Have the Right to Destroy Myself (Munhakdongne).
After meeting with Joseph Lee, it became much easier and more convenient to communicate with Korean copyright owners. Through working with Korean copyright agencies such as KL Management, and Eric Yang etc. we are continuously updated with new titles that stand out in the Korean market. In addition, we are provided with a basic summary of the content and information about the author in English and, if necessary, sample books or PDF copies for review as soon as required. We also receive information about publishing sponsorship and copyright owners. All of these are extremely useful sources of information for us to choose the right books for Vietnamese readers. Moreover, working with agencies that are familiar with Vietnam's book market helps us purchase the translation rights of Korean books for a more reasonable fee.

Since 2012, we have been participating in the Seoul Book Fair, meeting directly with Korean publishing partners. As a result, we have begun to pay more attention to genres of books other than literary ones. Since then, Nha Nam has attended the Seoul Book Fair almost every year to meet with new partners and update more publishing trends as well as the newest and most highlighted books in Korea.
Also, Korean publishing partners are highly active. They regularly come to Vietnam to get to know the market, meet with Vietnamese publishers and organize seminars to introduce their latest books. In addition to the meetings in Seoul and Hanoi, Nha Nam and our Korean publishing partners also had meetings at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the London Book Fair, and the Bologna Book Fair etc.
Thanks to the continuous efforts of both sides, along with the enthusiastic support of Korean cultural agencies such as KPIPA (Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea), Paju Book City, and the Daesan Foundation etc. we have increased the number of copyrighted books from Korea through the years, and expanded our interest in various genres such as educational books, comics, romance novels, essays, business books, self-help books, children's books, picture books, coloring books etc. Nha Nam has become one of the biggest publishers of translated Korean books in Vietnam. Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, we have had to reduce the number of books published in the last two years. However, in 2022, we expect to publish 10-12 new Korean books and will increase this number to 20-30 in the next few years.

In the literary book category, after Please Look After Mom and I Have the Right to Destroy My Self, we acquired the rights to more Korean literary books, such as Ahn Do-hyeon's Salmon (Munhakdongne), Gong Ji-young's Mackerel (Hainaim), Han Kang's Human Acts (Changbi), Pyun Hye Young's Ashes and Red (Changbi), Kim Un-su's The Plotters (Munhakdongne), Jeong You-Jeong’s 28 (EunHaeng NaMu), Jo Chang-in’s I Will Always Love You (Sanjibook) etc.
In addition to our knack for literature, as mentioned above, we have also introduced to Vietnamese readers the children’s literary works of Hwang Sunmi, Kim Yunjung, picture books by Lee Rury, and inspirational books by Kim Rando, Haemin Sumim, Pomnyun Sunim. In particular, Haemin Sunim’s two books (The Things You Can Only See When You Are Slow Down (Suo Books) and Love for Imperfect Things (Suo Books)) are very popular with Vietnamese readers and are two of our best sellers.

Korean books have not yet had a strong impact on Vietnamese readers like Korean dramas and K-Pop have done, but they have indeed left a deep impression. We often receive a lot of thoughtful and touching reviews about Korean literary works in Nha Nam Reading Club, a reading group with nearly 150.000 members that Nha Nam founded. We also often receive letters and messages from readers, introducing Korean books and asking Nha Nam to buy the copyright and publish a book that they love in Vietnamese. This shows that more and more Vietnamese people are interested in Korean books, as in the past, we often only received similar demands for English, Chinese, and Japanese books.
However, despite receiving a lot of valuable support both in finance and introductions to Korean translators, our biggest difficulty today is lacking people who are competent in both Korean and Vietnamese to translate literary works into Vietnamese. We hope that this situation will change, as currently, the number of students learning Korean has increased significantly compared to the time we started searching and buying Korean book rights.

Written by Nguyen Xuan Minh (Rights manager, Nha Nam publishing company, Vietnam)