Kudos to Korean literature – The Korea Times

Flowers are laid in front of novelist Han Kang’s home on Friday after she was named as the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in literature. Yonhap

Unsung heroes of Korean literature should also be remembered

Kudos to Han Kang, who became the first Korean to win the Nobel Prize in literature. Her critically acclaimed novel, “The Vegetarian,” took the writer’s already-successful literary career global — literally.

Her epic win helped her home country end a nearly quarter-century-long drought of Nobel Prizes since the late former President Kim Dae-jung (1924-2009) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000. Koreans celebrated her victory as if it were their own success.

Han Kang’s lucky break has become food for thought about unsung heroes on the literary scene.

Literary translators were the first group of people whose roles were critical to bringing Korean literature to the global stage. Although “The Vegetarian” was originally written in Korean, it didn’t get much attention from Korean readers when it was released in 2007.

It was a young British literary translator named Deborah Smith who helped English-speaking readers in the West discover Han’s work. Smith translated the text into English, and the translation won both of them the International Booker Prize in 2016. Since then, several of Han’s novels have been translated into English and other languages. Her works would have found it almost impossible to reach global readers without literary translators.

Slowly but gradually, several Korean writers’ gripping stories, one after another, have struck a chord with Western readers.

Han winning the Nobel Prize signaled international readers’ growing interest in Korean literary works.

With Korean writers successively making a mark in the international literary scene, literary translators have proven themselves an indispensable asset to Korean literature. Han and several other internationally known Korean writers owe their success — partially but significantly — to these dedicated literary translators.

Like in other industries, the publishing industry has intermediaries, or literary agents, who act as brokers between consumers and publishing houses. Their role is also critical to helping give global readers direct access to Korean novels.

Literary agents are the second group of people whose role behind Korean literature’s rise is critical, but their contributions are lesser-known to the public. Their job can be best understood when people imagine the lifecycle of books — from how they are produced, discovered and brought to bookstores. Once a masterpiece is out, talented literary translators translate it into English or other foreign languages. Writing and translating stories is one thing, and finding publishers and marketing the books is another. These are two very different processes requiring very different skills. Literary agents serve as a bridge between creatives and publishers.

Barbara Zitwer is one of the literary agents who discovered talented Korean novelists and connected them to global publishers like Penguin, Bloomsbury and Amazon Crossing, to name a few. She is an enthusiast of Korean literature armed with a sharp business acumen. It was Zitwer who connected Han to Western publishers. She is credited with having discovered several other Korean writers whose works she believed had the potential to strike a chord with Western readers, so their works were published by global publishing houses.

The last unsung hero is the Literary Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea). Since its establishment in 1996, the state-run agency has financed translations of quality literary works, both novels and poems. LTI Korea’s financial support and educational programs to train literary translators have formed the backbone of the globalization of Korean literary works.

Han’s winning the Nobel Prize is a blessing to Korean literature. To keep it prosperous, the three players — translators, agents and LTI Korea — should continue to do their part and create a supportive ecosystem for literary creators.

Among other things, the role of government should change. In the past, LTI Korea faithfully supported Korean literature’s global success and created a system for literary translation. Owing to its decades of work, the system is in place. Now is the time to switch gears. The state-run agency should ponder what role it should play in helping talented creators produce their work without financial pressure.

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