VOL.69/2024.04

Mexican Readers and Korean Literature

Korean Literature is the Promised Land of the Western Publishing Market

2023.08.07

Although Mexico and South Korea are on different continents and have many differences, they both have a history of fighting for their identity and country. While some events, such as the immigration of the first Korean community to Mexico in 1905, have been erased from Mexico’s official history (the historical debt is still being addressed), there is no arguing that the friendly relationship between the two countries is growing stronger every day as they find common ground.
Korea has increasingly expanded its influence through its culture and entertainment industry to bring down the borders, and its music and TV series, especially the drama and action genres, have been favored by Latin American audiences, including Mexico. Latin American audiences have long been influenced by the United States in their approach to universal human issues in society, and have come to discover unconventional approaches in Eastern societies, including Korea. Such an acceptance of cultural diversity marked the beginning of the “Asian culture boom” within the Latin American population.
For the past few years, Korean artistic trends have heavily influenced young Mexicans. They are forming communities that both criticize and suggest new trends in genres such as K-pop and K-drama. Of course, Korean literature is not left out of this cultural evaluation. It’s true that the languages of Korea and Mexico are not very similar, as are the spelling and pronunciation of many other languages. However, recently, translations of Korean literature have become easily available in the Mexican market and have caught the attention of Mexican readers.
The natural sounds, rhythms, and poetic blend of the Korean language stem from an age-old orally transmitted literary tradition, combined with a wide range of subjects such as war, fear of death, supernatural phenomena, solitude, family, love, and betrayal, which have long been used as topics for artistic expression. As a result, Korean literature allows Western readers to empathize with the day-to-day problems faced by the characters, and discover a new side of Korea, bringing them closer to a country they may have only seen on screen.

Sometimes it’s more worthy to intentionally ignore the features of a translation and contextualize the translation. This is because Korean literature covers a wide range of subjects. Some books, like Kim Young-Ha’s Flor Negra (English title: Black Flower) (Munhakdongne), explore historical issues unknown to both Koreans and Mexicans (e.g., the immigration of Koreans to Mexico in 1905), while others, like Koo Byung-Mo’s La panadería encantada (English title: The Wizard Bakery) (Changbi), Hwang Sun-Mi’s El niño de la pegatina amarilla (English title: THE BAD KID STICKERS) (Woongjin Junior), and Kim Rye-Ryung’s Wandeuk, Golpe a golpe (English title: Wandeuk) (Changbi) deal with issues of childhood and youth. In other words, spaces that are generally considered safe for people, such as home and school, are set up as the most dangerous places where uncertainty exists, revealing the worst side of people when faced with adversity and testing the protagonist’s determination.

* K-Book Trends Vol. 38 – Go to the interview of writer Hwang Sun-Mi

Como un cuento de hadas (English title: Like a Fairytale) (Minumsa) by Kim Kyung-Wook is a novel about people who have experienced the end of seemingly eternal love and have lost the dream of living a perfect life with their partner. This book features characters who reveal their most human and selfish sides as they search for answers to the question of what true love is. Though in a different genre, Lee Sang-Kwon’s fairy tale El pato que voló al cielo (English title: The Duck That Flew to Heaven) (Woongjin Junior) is another book about the harmony between humans and the environment, where it is easy to forget the importance of the environment. This leaves an emotional, if not joyful, message about human perception of the environment.

Like the books above, Korean fiction emphasizes harmony, protecting values, introversion, and internal conflict in every story, no matter the subject. The narrative diversity of Korean fiction, which highlights the country’s progress toward a borderless global society, makes it a promising market for the Western publishing market.

Written by Lizette Cisneros (Editor of Nostra Ediciones)