VOL.69/2024.04

Korean Literature in the American Market

2024.04.01

I began translating Yun Ko-eun for a literary translation workshop in 2015, as an undergraduate at Princeton University. Little did I know at the time that ten years later, I would still be translating Yun’s work. The Disaster Tourist (Minumsa), her first novel to be published in English, came out with Counterpoint Press in 2020. Her short story collection Table for One (Munji Publishing)–Yun’s debut publication, which was released in Korea in 2008–will come out in English with Columbia University Press in April of this year. I’m now working on a third book translation of Yun’s forthcoming novel Art on Fire (EunHaeng NaMu Publishing), and I hope to continue working with her for years to come.

The publication timeline for my translations was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Although I translated Table for One before The Disaster Tourist, its publication date was delayed by several years. This resulted in The Disaster Tourist being Yun’s English-language debut. Ultimately, I think that this was a good thing. The Disaster Tourist’s American publisher, Counterpoint Press, is a trade press, able to attract a broad audience–including readers who might be wary of translated literature or fear that it’s “too academic” for them. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, we weren’t able to promote the novel with in-person events and readings, but in spite of this, The Disaster Tourist received quite a bit of attention. The Atlantic published a review of the book, and it won the CWA Dagger for Crime Fiction in Translation and was longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award. Since The Disaster Tourist was published in English, it has also been translated into French, Chinese, Turkish, Polish, and Japanese. It’s exciting to see how the translation of a text into one language can encourage translation into other languages, expanding a writer’s readership internationally. I may be translating Korean books into English, primarily for an American audience, but I don’t think my work as a translator is limited to Korea and the United States. This was made evident last summer, when my Latvian roommate went home to Riga on vacation and texted me a photo of The Disaster Tourist on display in the English section of a local bookstore.

Now that Yun Ko-eun has an English readership, it’s the perfect time for Table for One to be published. Short story collections–especially those published by an academic rather than a trade publisher–can have a more difficult time attracting readers than novels, but since readers already know and love Yun’s work, they won’t be as wary as they otherwise might. Translated literature–and particularly Korean literature–in the American market is also in a very different place from where it was ten years ago. The typical American reader is now much more interested in international literature, and academic publishers like Columbia University Press have done a wonderful job promoting literature in translation not only to scholars, but also to casual readers who are curious about literature beyond the often-myopic bubble of the American literary market.
I think that much of The Disaster Tourist’s success with non-Korean readers has come from the fact that the book deals with contemporary issues that we are all facing, regardless of where we live. Climate change, the weariness of being a cog in the global capitalist machine, gender inequality: these issues look different depending on where you are in the world, but no one is untouched by them. Yun writes about them in a Korean context, but she also shows how they are global problems. Table for One is similar, and despite the fact that it was written over fifteen years ago, the stories it contains still feel timely and relevant. I’m excited to see how readers continue to respond to Yun’s wackiness and creativity.

Written by Lizzie Buehler (Translator)