Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ratslash]

For example, Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha is based in Japan, as is James Clavell's Shogun.

Are there any Korean books similar to these in English? Location/nationality of author not interested in. For example, author could be in Greenland, so long as it is a book that is based in/around/about Korea.

Thanks.

[jinks]

How about Geoffrey Archer's [not the Lord, the other one] Dark Angel? It starts and ends in England, but the main characters become heavilly involved in Korea through the Korean war. Geoffrey Archer's novels are usually gung-ho action stories, but Dark Angel displays a sensitivity not usually associated with Archer's work.

[krats1976]

Dunno about higher level work, but Linda Sue Park (Korean-American) writes middle-school level fiction about Korea.

When My Name Was Keoko is a good one about life under Japanese occupation.

A Single Shard is also pretty well known. I read it before I came to Korea so I don't remember the details, but it takes place in ancient Korea.

They're easy reads, but also quite interesting.

[billybrobby]

Chang-Rae Lee is a korean american author whose won a bunch of awards. can't say i've read his stuff though, and it's not set in korea, although it usually has korean characters

[gypsyfish]

Pearl Buck (going way back) also wrote about Korea. You can pick it up at Bandi & Luni.

[justagirl]

One Thousand Chestnut Trees--kinda a personal story, but I think it's considered fiction--may be a biography of sorts, but I think I remember the author saying she took some liberties in writing it.

Along those lines, Still Life With Rice is one of the absolute best books I've read about Korea--another biography-ish type, but reads like a novel.

[Ya-ta Boy]

Some British author, whose name I have deliberately erased from my memory, wrote a book, "The Red Queen". It's stolen from an autobiography written by a Korean princess about a horrifying event in the late 1700's. The event is fascinating. (King ends up killing his son after driving him nuts. There is also a lot of political maneuvering going on.)

Get the original story by the princess. Crummy translation. Good story.

Skip the modern piece of trash. The author pretends to be the princess and talks about ghosts and the modern world as well as 'her' time. Writes like the closest she ever came to Korea was a galbi restaurant in London. Last half of the book is about another woman's affair with a Korean man...or maybe not. I was so fed up with the first part I didn't finish the book.

There's a good war autobio by ??? Brady. "The Coldest War", I think the title is. A Marine.

[kangnam mafioso]

Maybe we could expand this thread to include fiction written about/based in ASIA by westerners. korea is such a narrow field and very little fiction has been written about it.

my picks:

standard deviations, karl taro greenfield

anything by william vollmann

global soul, pico iyer

[ifa79]

"Fox Girl" by Nora Okja Keller is a short novel about some mixed-race teenagers and Korean prostitutes in the US military towns around the bases in the 1960s. It is a depressing story even though it has a sort of happy ending.

[eamo]

[mindmetoo]

Damn I thought this was about "lies we're told about Korea before we come." Like "Koreans hold teachers in high regard and teachers are very respected by students." Natch.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Hey, great thread. I'm supposed to meet a girl at Kyobo Friday night and I'll be sure to check out a few of the titles.

Do Koreans write any Anime comics themselves or do they just keep translating Japan's?

[jazzplayer]

There's a good series by a writer named Martin Limon--he was a military guy on Yongsan in the 1970s and writes very good crime fiction set in Korea (w/ an emphasis on Itaewon).

For more serious fiction there's a book called Memories of My Ghost Brother--by a Korean-American guy whose name I forget right now. A really good novel.

The afore-mentioned Fox Girl is very good too, I thought.

[ratslash]

Excellent! Thank you for your comments.

Anymore books out there?

[ratslash]