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Kim Young-Ha interview at The Beijinger

February 27th, 2011 § 6 comments

Thanks to KTLit.com for pointing to this interview with Kim Young-Ha. KTLit, by the way, posts reviews, news, and commentary on modern Korean Literature. Take a look!

How do you like teaching at Columbia University? Does anything strike you about the students in America? Their approach to literature? How does it vary from what you’ve experienced in Korea’s literary and academic worlds?

Actually I am not teaching at Columbia University regularly. But I meet the students occasionally at the seminars and literary events. I find American students are quite different when they read my novels. In Korea, students understand the background of the novel very well. So they just focus on the novel itself: characters, plot and style. But American students keep asking  questions that Korean students are not curious about. American students are trying to find clues for understanding Korean society. Thanks to their ignorance, I can get an ‘exotic’ perspective or different viewpoint to look back on where I am from.

Have you read your work in English? How do you feel it translates?

Nope. I haven’t read translated works of mine. I just trust my editor and translator and let them work. Whenever I see the books that are translated into languages that I can’t read like German, French or Turkish, I feel like I’m meeting a boy who insists that he is my biological son from an ex-girlfriend. They say it is my book, but I am not 100% sure it is mine.

Kim Young-Ha is the author of Your Republic Is Calling You, which has received mixed reviews from non-Korean press. Here’s the opening paragraph from the Washington Post: “It’s never a good sign when I have to flip to the back cover of a novel I’ve just finished to find out what it was supposed to be about. In the case of “Your Republic Is Calling You,” a new novel by the celebrated Korean writer Young-ha Kim, I don’t think the book jacket writer had a clue what was going on either.” What a doozy. I have a copy that I picked up in an airport bookstore, where it was prominently displayed with the latest thrillers (read: The Millenium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson). So there’s that.

 

 

  • parrish

    Just read the Washington posts review of this & the reviewer wasn’t keen, have you read & if so what’s it really like.

  • gina

    I’ve read a few pages of it, not far enough to make any judgement. It’s not that often that I come across a review that completely pans a book. I’m very curious now to see if I’ll agree.

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  • http://londonkoreanlinks.net/ Philip

    I can’t believe the reviewer actually read the book. It’s one of the easiest books I’ve read in ages, whether of Korean literature in translation or of works by a native English speaker.

    Charles over at ktlit.com loved it, as did I. http://londonkoreanlinks.net/2010/09/15/book-review-your-republic-is-calling-you/

  • http://londonkoreanlinks.net/ Philip

    (for the avoidance of doubt, I was referring to the Washington Post reviewer)

  • gina

    I haven’t read it yet, but I have moved it up my list because of the WaPo review. I have to say that it’s rare that I see a book review so scathing. . . .
    By the way, I like your website! I’ll keep my eye on the April events. I’ll be in town for LBF!

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