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Author Talks: Miye Lee

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* Indies Introduce Pick for Summer 2024

“This delightful story transcends…..A comforting story of dreams, lives, and the ways people process all that reality offers them.”—Kirkus Review

What if there was a store that sold dreams? Which would you buy? And who might you become when you wake up? A captivating story that will leave a lingering magical feeling in readers’ minds, Miye Lee‘s The Dallergut Dream Department Store is the first book in a bestselling duology for anyone exhausted from the reality of their daily life.

In a mysterious town hidden in our collective subconscious there’s a department store that sells dreams. Day and night, visitors both human and animal shuffle in to purchase their latest adventure. Each floor specializes in a specific type of dream: childhood memories, food dreams, ice skating, dreams of stardom. Flying dreams are almost always sold out. Some seek dreams of loved ones who have died.

For Penny, an enthusiastic new hire, working at Dallergut is the opportunity of a lifetime. As she uncovers the workings of this whimsical world, she bonds with a cast of unforgettable characters. 

Miye Lee discusses her debut novel, which has been translated into English by Sandy Joosun Lee.

 

Author Talks: Miye Lee

Tuesday, July 9, 2024


 The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

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About the Speaker:

Miye Lee was born in Busan in 1990. After graduating from the Busan National University School of Materials Science and Engineering, she worked as a semiconductor engineer at Samsung Electronics. Her debut novel The Dallergut Dream Department Store has sold over one million copies in Korea and was named the 2020 Book of the Year by numerous bookstores and websites, including Yes24, Interpark, Aladdin, and Youngpoong Books.

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Writing Short Stories with Gina Chung and Yun Ko-eun Author Talks: Park Seolyeon Author Talks: Hwang Bo-reum Author Talks: Bora Chung & Anton Hur

Writing Short Stories with Gina Chung and Yun Ko-eun

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Is the short story a fiction writer’s laboratory where you can experiment with characters, plots, and ideas? or is it an art form of its own, telling a complete story in just a few words? What does a short story need to have in order to be successful that is different from a novel? And what makes the writers return to this form of writing again and again?

Join us for a conversation between Gina Chung (Green Frog, Sea Change) and Yun Ko-eun (Table for One, The Disaster Tourist) about the art of short story writing in English and Korean.

 

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Writing Short Stories with Gina Chung and Yun Ko-eun

In-Person: Tuesday, June 11, 2024 | 6:30 PM (EDT)

Video Release: Tuesday, June 18, 2024 


 The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

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About the Speakers:

Gina Chung is a Korean American writer from New Jersey currently living in New York City. She is the author of the short story collection Green Frog (out March 12, 2024 from Vintage in the U.S. and June 6, 2024 from Picador in the U.K.) and the novel Sea Change, which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, a 2023 B&N Discover Pick, an APALA Adult Fiction Honor Book, and a New York Times Most Anticipated Book. A recipient of the Pushcart Prize, she is a 2021-2022 Center for Fiction/Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellow and holds an MFA in fiction from The New School. 

Yun Ko-eun is the winner of 2021 CWA Dagger for Crime Fiction in Translation and was the first Asian writer to receive the award. Her prizewinning novel The Disaster Tourist was praised as an ecothriller by English language media and received positive reviews throughout the US and UK. It was shortlisted for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Rosetta Awards, Comedy Women in Print Awards, and the Dublin Literature Award. The Disaster Tourist has been sold to 11 Countries, the UK, America, France, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Latvia, Poland, China, Taiwan and Japan. The TV series adaptation of The Disaster Tourist will be made in English, and Yun will be an executive producer. Table for One is Yun’s first collection of short stories to be translated into English. Her second novel in translation is Art on Fire, published in Korea in 2023.

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June Hur: A Crane Among Wolves with Ellen Oh

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Author Photo: © Julie Anna Tang |      

“Award-winner Hur’s latest historical intrigue is well researched and doesn’t shy away from depicting elements of this real king’s brutal history, and the resulting tale is immersive, intense, and engaging. A page-turner.” —Kirkus Reviews

To save her sister, a teen girl becomes entangled in a political conspiracy with an enigmatic prince in this fiery new YA novel. June Hur, bestselling author of The Red Palace, returns with a devastating and pulse-pounding tale based on a true story from Korean history.

A Crane Among Wolves is set in 1506 Joseon, where people suffer under the cruel reign of the tyrant King Yeonsan, powerless to stop him from commandeering their land for his recreational use, banning and burning books, and kidnapping and horrifically abusing women and girls as his personal playthings.

Seventeen-year-old Iseul has lived a sheltered, privileged life despite the kingdom’s turmoil. When her older sister, Suyeon, becomes the king’s latest prey, Iseul leaves the relative safety of her village, traveling through forbidden territory to reach the capital in hopes of stealing her sister back. But she soon discovers the king’s power is absolute, and to challenge his rule is to court certain death.

Prince Daehyun has lived his whole life in the terrifying shadow of his despicable half-brother, the king. Forced to watch King Yeonsan flaunt his predation through executions and rampant abuse of the common folk, Daehyun aches to find a way to dethrone his half-brother once and for all.

When Iseul’s and Daehyun’s fates collide, their contempt for each other is transcended only by their mutual hate for the king. Armed with Iseul’s family connections and Daehyun’s royal access, they reluctantly join forces to launch the riskiest gamble the kingdom has ever seen.

In her conversation with Ellen Oh, June Hur discusses her new novel and writing YA novels based on lives and stories from Korean history.

 

June Hur: A Crane Among Wolves with Ellen Oh

Monday, May 13, 2024 | 6 PM (EDT)


 The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

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About the Speaker:

June Hur is a bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author of YA historicals, including The Silence of Bones, The Forest of Stolen Girls, The Red Palace, and A Crane Among Wolves. Born in South Korea, Hur spent her formative years in the USA, Canada, and South Korea before studying History and Literature at the University of Toronto, and working at the city’s public library. Her work has been featured in Forbes, NPR, The New York Times, CBC, and KBS. June resides in Toronto with her family and can be spotted writing in coffee shops.

 

About the Moderator:
 

Ellen Oh is the author of the new young adult novel The Colliding Worlds of Mina Lee and an award-winning author of middle grade novels Haru Zombie Dog Hero, Finding Junie Kim, Dragon Egg Princess, The Spirit Hunters trilogy and The Prophecy Series: Prophecy, Warrior and King. She is the editor and contributor of You Are Here: Connecting Flights, a collection of interwoven stories, editor of the middle grade anthology Flying Lessons and Other Stories and the young adult anthology A Thousand Beginnings and Endings. She is a founding member of We Need Diverse Books, a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing diversity in children’s literature. Oh lives in Rockville, Md., with her husband, three human children and two dog children.

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Author Talks: Park Seolyeon

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Author Photo: Studio Gaga

A millennial turned magical girl must combat climate change and credit card debt in A Magical Girl Retires, a delightful, witty, and wildly imaginative ode to magical girl manga by Park Seolyeon.

Our protagonist is a normal girl; that is, a 29-year-old millennial woman drowning in credit card debt and unable to find a job after the pandemic rendered her unemployed. She has no family left, no friends, no prospects. One night she goes to Seoul’s Mapo Bridge to end all her troubles—until her attempt is interrupted by a white-clad woman who introduces herself as magical girl Ah Roa. Roa is clairvoyant and searching for the greatest magical girl of them all. And our protagonist just may be that special someone.

Magical girlhood isn’t what our protagonist expected. It’s work: real work, work that can pay off credit card debt! There are magical girl job fairs, magical girl classes, a magical girl cult…and a magical girl union Roa works under. The union is concerned with the greatest threat to humanity of them all: the climate crisis. They think our protagonist can defeat it. But what exactly are her abilities? And why is her magic wand a credit card?

Park Seolyeon explores real-world challenges that are both deeply personal and universal: the search for meaning and the desire to do good in a world that feels like it’s ending. A fun, fast-paced, and enchanting narrative that sparkles thanks to award-nominated translator Anton Hur, A Magical Girl Retires reminds us that we are all magical girls—that fighting evil by moonlight and winning love by daylight can be anyone’s game.

In this episode of Author Talks, Park Seolyeon discusses her career and her English debut.

 

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Author Talks: Park Seolyeon

Tuesday, April 30, 2024


 The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

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About the Speaker:

Park Seolyeon was born in Cheorwon, South Korea and lives in Seoul. She made her debut in the journal Silcheon Munhak and received the 2018 Hankyoreh Literary Award for her novel The Girl in the Air. Her works include the novels Martha’s Work and The Shirley Club, as well as the short-story collection My Hormones Made Me Do It. She runs the literature platform Dungeon.

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Author Talks: Yun Ko-eun with Lizzie Buehler

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“Weirdly wonderful and wonderfully weird.”— Kirkus Reviews

In the first short-story collection of hers to be translated into and published in English, South Korean author Yun Ko-eun conjures up slightly off-kilter worlds tucked away in the corners of everyday life. Table for One is bursting with images that toe the line between realism and the fantastic, comedy and an element of the surreal, interwoven with the hopelessness and loneliness that pervades the protagonists’ decidedly mundane lives. Mixing quirky and melancholy commentary on densely packed urban life, Yun calls attention to the toll of rapid industrialization and the displacement of traditional culture, presenting a parade of misfortunes that speak to all readers in their unconventional universality.

One of South Korea’s breakout young writers, Yun Ko-eun and her English translator Lizzie Buehler discusses her career and writings.

 

Author Talks: Yun Ko-eun with Lizzie Buehler

Tuesday, April 16, 2024


 The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

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About the Speakers:

Yun Ko-eun is the winner of 2021 CWA Dagger for Crime Fiction in Translation and was the first Asian writer to receive the award. Her prizewinning novel The Disaster Tourist was praised as an ecothriller by English language media and received positive reviews throughout the US and UK. It was shortlisted for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Rosetta Awards, Comedy Women in Print Awards, and the Dublin Literature Award. Since her first publication in 2008, Yun has steadily built a body of work that is so unique, critics have dubbed it the “Yun Ko-eun genre.”

Yun’s first novel in translation The Disaster Tourist has been sold to 11 Countries, the UK, America, France, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Latvia, Poland, China, Taiwan and Japan. The TV series adaptation of The Disaster Tourist will be made in English, and Yun will be an executive producer. Yun’s second novel in translation is Art on Fire, published in Korea in 2023.

 

Lizzie Buehler is the translator of The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-eun and Korean Teachers by Seo Su-jin. She holds an MFA in literary translation from the University of Iowa and has studied comparative literature at Princeton and Harvard.

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Crystal Hana Kim: The Stone Home with Susan Choi

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Author photo: Nina Subin

“It is a privilege to read Crystal Hana Kim’s fiction, which both edifies and enlightens.”— Min Jin Lee

A hauntingly poetic family drama and coming-of-age story that reveals a dark corner of South Korean history through the eyes of a small community living in a reformatory center, The Stone Home is a stunning work of great emotional power from Crystal Hana Kim, the critically acclaimed author of If You Leave Me.

In 2011, Eunju Oh opens her door to greet a stranger: a young Korean American woman holding a familiar-looking knife—a knife Eunju hasn’t seen in thirty years, and that connects her to a place she’d desperately hoped to leave behind forever. In South Korea in the 1980s, young Eunju and her mother are homeless on the street. After being captured by the police, they’re sent to live within the walls of a state-sanctioned reformatory center that claims to rehabilitate the nation’s citizens but hides a darker, more violent reality. While Eunju and her mother form a tight-knit community with the other women in the kitchen, two teenage brothers, Sangchul and Youngchul, are compelled to labor in the workshops and make increasingly desperate decisions—and all are forced down a path of survival, the repercussions of which will echo for decades to come.

Inspired by real events, told through alternating timelines and two intimate perspectives, The Stone Home is a deeply affecting story of a mother and daughter’s love and a pair of brothers whose bond is put to an unfathomably difficult test. Capturing a shameful period of history with breathtaking restraint and tenderness, Crystal Hana Kim weaves a lyrical exploration of the legacy of violence and the complicated psychology of power, while showcasing the extraordinary acts of devotion and friendship that can arise in the darkness.

In her conversation with Susan Choi, Crystal Hana Kim discusses her second novel.

During the event, The Stone Home will be available for purchase.

 

Crystal Hana Kim: The Stone Home with Susan Choi

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 | 6:30 PM (EDT)

 

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

Join our membership program here!

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About the Author:

Crystal Hana Kim is the author of If You Leave Me, which was named one of the best books of 2018 by over a dozen publications. Kim is the recipient of the 2022 National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award and is a 2017 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize winner. Currently, she is the Visiting Assistant Professor at Queens College and a contributing editor at Apogee Journal. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her family.

 

About the Moderator:

Susan Choi’s first novel, The Foreign Student, won the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction.  Her second novel, American Woman, was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize.  Her third novel, A Person of Interest, was a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award. In 2010 she was named the inaugural recipient of the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award.  Her fourth novel, My Education, received a 2014 Lammy Award.  Her fifth novel, Trust Exercise, won the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction, and in 2021 she received the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award for “Flashlight.”  She serves as a trustee of PEN America and teaches in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.

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Starry Field with Margaret Juhae Lee and Grace M. Cho

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In her intimate and touching debut, Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History, journalist Margaret Juhae Lee uncovers her family’s lost history that had been buried in the darkness of Korea’s colonial decades.

Growing up in Houston, Margaret Juhae Lee was never told about her grandfather, Lee Chul Ha. His memory was submerged in 1936 Korea, when Lee Chul Ha died a disgraced communist rebel, leaving Margaret’s grandmother widowed with their two young sons. To his surviving family Lee Chul Ha was a criminal. As an act of unearthing her own identity, Margaret needed to understand why.

Margaret began investigating the truth of her grandfather’s story. After many trips to Korea, she located her grandfather’s interrogation records, and began a series of long-form interviews with her grandmother. Through her research, Margaret discovered an extraordinary young man, Lee Chul Ha – a student revolutionary imprisoned in 1929 for protesting the Japanese government’s colonization of Korea. Lee Chul Ha was a hero and eventually honored as a Patriot of South Korea almost 60 years after his death. With this new knowledge came Margaret’s realization that her grandmother had old wounds she needed to heal.

Starry Field weaves together Margaret’s family story against the backdrop of Korea’s tumultuous modern history, with a powerful question at its heart. Can we ever separate ourselves from our family’s past—and if the answer is yes, should we?

In her conversation with Grace M. Cho, Margaret Juhae Lee discusses her memoir.

During the event, Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History will be available for purchase.

 

Starry Field with Margaret Juhae Lee and Grace M. Cho

Wednesday, March 27, 2024 | 6:30 PM (EDT)


 The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

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About the Speaker:

Margaret Juhae Lee is an Oakland-based writer and a former literary editor of The Nation magazine. She has been the recipient of a Bunting Fellowship from Harvard University, and a Korean Studies Fellowship from the Korean Foundation. She is also a Tin House scholar, and has been awarded residencies at the Mesa Refuge, the Anderson Center, and Mineral School. In 2020, she was named “Person of the Year” by the Sangcheol Cultural Welfare Foundation in Kongju, South Korea, for her work in honoring her grandfather, Patriot Lee Chul Ha. Her articles, reviews, and interviews have been published in The Nation, Newsday, Elle, ARTnews, The Advocate, The Progressive and The Rumpus.

 

About the Moderator:

Grace M. Cho is the author of Tastes Like War (Feminist Press, 2021), a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award in nonfiction and the winner of the 2022 Asian Pacific American Literature Award in adult nonfiction. Her first book, Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War (University of Minnesota Press, 2008), received a 2010 book award from the American Sociological Association. Her writings have appeared in The Nation, Catapult, The New Inquiry, Poem Memoir Story, Contexts, Gastronomica, Feminist Studies, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and Qualitative Inquiry. She is Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the College of Staten Island, CUNY.

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Colloquy: Translating Korean Poetry

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The Korea Society is delighted to present Colloquy: Translating Korean Poetry, featuring five poets and translators –Stine An, Eunice Lee, Seo Jung Hak, Megan Sungyoon, and Soje– for an evening of poetry reading and conversation.

Colloquy: Translators in Conversation is an event series presented by World Poetry Books in collaboration with Montez Press Radio and a partnering New York City institution. Since 2022, Colloquy event series provides a forum for translators to engage with live audiences in an exploration of the art of translation. Each Colloquy event presents a group of two to four translators of recently published works (or works-in-progress) for short readings and moderated conversations, followed by Q&A’s with the audience.

 

Colloquy: Translating Korean Poetry

Monday, March 25, 2024 | 6:30 PM (EDT)


 The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

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About the Speakers:

Stine An is a poet, translator, and performer in New York City. Her work has appeared in Best Literary Translations 2024, World Literature Today, The Southern Review, Chicago Review, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Literary Arts from Brown University and a BA in Literature from Harvard College, and is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN America, and The Poetry Project.

Eunice Lee is a researcher, translator, and poet. Her translations of Korean poetry have appeared in The Margins (Asian American Writers’ Workshop), Asymptote Journal, chogwa, Circumference, Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature & Culture, Columbia Journal, and more. She is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Harvard University, and is currently translating the poets Kim Myŏng-sun and Kim Sono.

A native of Seoul, poet Seo Jung Hak made his debut with four poems in the Winter 1995 issue of Literature and Society. His first poetry collection, The King of Adventure and Aristocrats of Coconut was published in 1998 by Moonji Publishing, one of the most important literary publishers in South Korea. The Cheapest France in Town (World Poetry, 2023), originally published by Moonji in 2017, marks his debut in English translation.

Megan Sungyoon translates between languages and across genres. Sungyoon’s work has appeared in World Poetry Review, Copper Nickel, Asymptote, Columbia Journal, SAND Journal, and The Margins, among others. Based in Seoul and New York, Sungyoon holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA in Poetry and Literary Translation from Columbia University. The Cheapest France in Town (World Poetry) is her first book of translation.

Soje is a poet and the translator of Lee Hyemi’s Unexpected Vanilla (Tilted Axis Press), Lee Soho’s Catcalling (Open Letter Books), and Choi Jin-young’s To the Warm Horizon (Honford Star). They also make chogwa, a zine that features one Korean poem and multiple English translations per issue.

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Author Talks: Hwang Bo-reum

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The charming slice-of-life novel Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by debut novelist Hwang Bo-reum became an instant smash hit with Korean readers. Now, the irresistible bestseller is available to English readers for the first time with an effervescent translation by Singaporean translator Shanna Tan.

Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop brings to life the escapist fantasy of ditching the corporate grind in pursuit of passion, daring to ask the question that all book lovers dream about: what if I quit my job and opened a bookstore?

In this episode of Author Talks, Hwang Bo-reum discusses her career and her English debut.

 

Author Talks: Hwang Bo-reum

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

 

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

Join our membership program here!

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About the Speaker:

Author photo credit: Seong Ji Min/Clayhouse Inc. | 

Hwang Bo-reum studied computer science and worked as a software engineer. She wrote several essay collections: I Read Every Day, I Tried Kickboxing for the First Time and This Distance is Perfect. Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop is her first novel, which has sold over 150,000 copies in Korea and has been sold into nine territories.

 

Author Talks: Bora Chung & Anton Hur

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Author photo: ©HyeYoung | 

 

The author and translator of Cursed Bunny, a National Book Award and International Booker Prize Finalist, are back with a new collection of short stories.

A rising star of Korean literature, Bora Chung burst onto the American literary scene last year with the publication of her astounding debut, Cursed Bunny: Stories, translated by Anton Hur. Met with universal praise, these surreal, chilling fables that take on patriarchy, capitalism, and the reign of big tech were a National Book Award Finalist for Translated Literature and shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. Chung and Hur returns with her striking sophomore collection, Your Utopia: Stories.

Filled with Chung’s inimitable blend of horror, absurdity, and dark humor, and set in near and distant futures that reflect our deepest fears and desires, the stories in Your Utopia take place in different, off-kilter yet sometimes uncannily familiar settings. With Your Utopia, Chung hopes to provide readers with “a collection of stories that explore the limits of humanity to re-discover what it means to be human. Like all other works of science and speculative fiction, Your Utopia is ultimately about human beings: who we are and what we will be as the Anthropocene era reaches its peak and eventual demise.”

In this episode of Author Talks, Bora Chung is joined by Anton Hur to discuss her latest English publication.

 

Author Talks: Bora Chung & Anton Hur

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

 

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

Join our membership program here!

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