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The Modern Korean Novel in English Translation - The Guest. By Hwang Sok-yong [Hwang Sŏg-yŏng]. Translated by Kyung-Ja Chun and Maya West. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2005. 237 pp. $16.95. - I Have the Right to Destroy Myself. By Young-ha Kim [Kim Yŏng-ha]. Translated by Chi-Young Kim. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, Inc., 2007. 119 pp. $12.00. - Toy City. By Lee Dong-ha [Yi Tong-ha]. Translated by Chi-Young Kim. St. Paul, Minn.: Koryo Press, 2007. viii, 214 pp. $14.00. - The Bird. By Oh Jung-Hee [O Chŏng-hŭi]. Translated by Jenny Wang Medina. London: Telegram Books, 2007. 167 pp. $14.95.

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The Guest. By Hwang Sok-yong [Hwang Sŏg-yŏng]. Translated by Kyung-Ja Chun and Maya West. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2005. 237 pp. $16.95.

I Have the Right to Destroy Myself. By Young-ha Kim [Kim Yŏng-ha]. Translated by Chi-Young Kim. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, Inc., 2007. 119 pp. $12.00.

Toy City. By Lee Dong-ha [Yi Tong-ha]. Translated by Chi-Young Kim. St. Paul, Minn.: Koryo Press, 2007. viii, 214 pp. $14.00.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2011

Bruce Fulton*
Affiliation:
The University of British Columbia
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Abstract

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Type
Review Essay—Korea
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2011

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References

1 It is for this reason that I do not consider in this article English-language novel translations published in Korea. Such translations date to the early 1980s, but none has been marketed in the West; most were commissioned by funding agencies in Seoul, and their production values and the quality of the translations would put them at a disadvantage in the overseas book market.

2 It is perhaps for these reasons that when O Chŏng-hŭi's Sae (reviewed here in its translation, The Bird) was first published in 1996 by Munhak kwa chisŏng sa, it was labeled sosŏl, “fiction”; not until it was published in a revised edition by the same publisher in 2009 was it labeled changp'yŏn sosŏl, “novel.” I Have the Right to Destroy Myself, for its part, though labeled changp'yŏn sosŏl in its original Korean edition, from Munhak tongne, is only 116 pages in English translation.

3 See my reviews of this translation in Pacific Rim Review of Books, no. 8 (Spring 2008): 33Google Scholar; and Translation Review 79 (2010): 7980Google Scholar.