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Joining the lineup for 2023, we are thrilled to announce our first project with translator Anton Hur. INDETERMINATE INFLORESCENCE is a collection of aphorisms on poetry-writing by the South Korean poet Lee Seong-bok, assembled by his students from his lectures. The aphorisms are small poems in their own right, and their cumulative force is to … [Read More]
The Korean Cinema Book [forthcoming]
ed Nikki Lee, Julian Stringer pub BFI expected Sep 2023
Publisher description: The volume provides the first detailed and authoritative overview of Korean cinema history, and in so doing develops new historical and critical understandings of Korean cinema from the period of Japanese colonial rule to the present day, with two very different cinematic traditions in this divided peninsula. The contributed chapters approach the subject … [Read More]
Justifying Violence on Korea’s Cold War Frontlines: The Life and Representations of Kim Tu-han [forthcoming]
by Erik Mobrand pub Bloomsbury expected May 2023
The son of a nationalist martyr, Kim Tu-han (1918-1972) rose to prominence as a mobster in 1930s Seoul. As conditions shifted, he deployed his gang first as a construction corps supporting the Japanese war effort, then as a progressive force, and, most successfully, as an anti-communist vigilante group. After narrowly escaping the death sentence for … [Read More]
The Korean Book of Happiness [forthcoming]
by Barbara Zitwer pub Short Books expected Mar 2023
From the very first moment she set foot in South Korea, Barbara Zitwer, literary agent to some of the most celebrated, prize-winning Korean authors, fell head-over-heels in love, discovering there a renewed sense of happiness and energy. In this witty, charming book, Zitwer shares all that she has learnt about this fascinating country: a vibrant, … [Read More]
While Time Remains: A North Korean Defector’s Search for Freedom in America [forthcoming]
by Yeonmi Park pub Simon and Schuster expected Feb 2023
The North Korean defector, human rights advocate, and bestselling author of In Order to Live sounds the alarm on the culture wars, identity politics, and authoritarian tendencies tearing America apart. After defecting from North Korea, Yeonmi Park found liberty and freedom in America. But she also found a chilling crackdown on self-expression and thought that … [Read More]
100°C: South Korea’s 1987 Democracy Movement [forthcoming]
by Choi Gyu-seok tr Anna Toombs, Brooke Shelton, Gia Kim, Jisun Park, Madeline D Collins, Nguyen Thi Huong Ly, Theodore Jun Yoo pub University of Hawai'i Press expected Jan 2023
What does it take for ordinary citizens to risk everything to protest living under a repressive government? What takes them beyond the brink, to the “boiling point”? In his graphic novel 100°C, celebrated webtoon and comics artist Choi Kyu-sok sheds a light on these questions by examining the lives of one family caught up in the great … [Read More]
The Master from Mountains and Fields: Prose Writings of Hwadam, Sŏ Kyŏngdŏk [forthcoming]
by Isabelle Sancho pub University of Hawai'i Press expected Nov 2022
The Master from Mountains and Fields is a fully annotated translation of the prose texts from the “collected works” of Sŏ Kyŏngdŏk (1489–1546), an influential Confucian scholar from the early Chosŏn period (1392-1910). A native of Songdo (also known as Kaesŏng) in present-day North Korea, Sŏ has loomed large in the Korean cultural imagination and appeared … [Read More]
Minor Salvage The Korean War and Korean American Life Writings [forthcoming]
by Stephen Hong Sohn pub University of Michigan Press expected Nov 2022
The Korean War, often invoked in American culture as “the forgotten war,” was fought between 1950 and 1953 and ended with an infamous stalemate and the construction of the Korean Peninsula’s Demilitarized Zone. Millions of Korean civilians and refugees were left behind, some of whom would go onto live in the United States. Minor Salvage … [Read More]
The Rebel and the Kingdom: The True Story of the Secret Mission to Overthrow the North Korean Regime [forthcoming]
by Bradley Hope pub Crown expected Nov 2022
A gripping account of an Ivy League activist-turned-fugitive and his clandestine effort to overthrow the murderous North Korean regime, a heart-pounding investigation into personal agency and the price of freedom from the New York Times bestselling co-author of Billion Dollar Whale In the early 2000s Adrian Hong was a soft-spoken undergraduate at Yale who, like … [Read More]
by Sam Ankenbauer pub Liverpool University Press expected Oct 2022
Na Hong-jin’s The Wailing (2016) has been acclaimed as one of the very best horror films of recent years. In The Wailing, a mysterious illness turns its rural victims into comatose perpetrators of familicide. In the fog of an unknown spiritual war, police officer Jong-goo is helpless as his community fragments and suspicions turn to a mysterious Japanese … [Read More]
Song of Arirang: The Story of a Korean Rebel Revolutionary in China [forthcoming]
by Kim San, Nym Wales tr Dongyoun Hwang pub Kaya expected Sep 2022
From the publisher’s website: Song of Arirang tells the true story of Korean revolutionary Kim San (Jang Jirak), who left colonized Korea as a teenager to fight against Japanese imperialism and fought alongside Mao’s Red Army during the Chinese Revolution. First published in 1941, this remarkably intimate memoir (as told to the American journalist Nym … [Read More]
Make Break Remix: The Rise of K-Style
by Fiona Bae pub Thames + Hudson (2022)
K-pop, K-fashion, K-drama, K-beauty: over the last decade, K-style has exploded onto the global scene. Where does it go from here? In Make, Break, Remix, Fiona Bae makes no attempt to define or categorize the movement, instead celebrating the eclectic, multifaceted nature of K-style and its home city of Seoul. Through interviews with tastemakers who … [Read More]
by Elisa Shua Dusapin tr Aneesa Abbas Higgins pub Daunt (2022)
The days are beginning to draw in. The sky is dark by seven in the evening. I lie on the floor and gaze out of the window. Women’s calves, men’s shoes, heels trodden down by the weight of bodies borne for too long. It is summer in Tokyo. Claire finds herself dividing her time between … [Read More]
South Korean Popular Culture in the Global Context: Beyond the Fandom
ed Sojin Lim pub Routledge (2022)
This book explores the recent landscape of Korean popular culture, including celebrity diplomacy, political activism, and inter-Korean relations in the era of ‘ontact’, with a special focus on K-pop and K-drama. Utilising the interdisciplinary approach, along with theoretical accounts, it redefines popular culture and its true power – beyond soft power – including discussions of … [Read More]
North Korean Women in Power: Daughters of the Sun
by Chun Su-jin pub Hollym (2022)
North Korean Women in Power is the first field report on North Korea written by a South Korean woman reporter in English. Chun Su-jin, who refers to herself as a “Korean-Korean (South Korean nationality with a North Korean heritage),” introduces four North Korean women who make Chairman Kim Jong-un complete—the one and only blood to … [Read More]
Flower of Capitalism: South Korean Advertising at a Crossroads
by Olga Fedorenko pub University of Hawai'i Press (2022)
An ethnography of advertising in postmillennial South Korea, Flower of Capitalism: South Korean Advertising at a Crossroads details contests over advertising freedoms and obligations among divergent vested interests while positing far-reaching questions about the social contract that governs advertising in late-capitalist societies. The term “flower of capitalism” is a clichéd metaphor for advertising in South Korea, bringing … [Read More]