The First Korean Novel to Focus on the Korean Comfort Women

Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs

Korea Peninsula Affairs Center presents

The First Korean Novel to Focus on the Korean “Comfort Women” Korean author Kim Soom, noting the ever-declining number of former Korean “comfort women,” was inspired to research the lives of these long-lived survivors of sexual servitude. Their lives form the basis of her novel Han myŏng (literally “one person,” in our translation One Left). The first Korean novel devoted exclusively to the subject of the comfort women, it is crucial literary document at a time when movements for social justice and truth and reconciliation have commanded global attention.

Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton are the translators of numerous volumes of modern Korean fiction, most recently the novels Mina by Kim Sagwa (Two Lines Press, 2018) and The Catcher in the Loft by Ch’ŏn Un-yŏng (Codhill Press, 2019). Their translations of Korean short fiction appear in The Massachusetts Review, Granta, and Asymptote. Among their awards and fellowships are two U.S. National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowships and the first residency at the Banff International Literary Translation Centre awarded to translators from any Asian language. Bruce Fulton occupies the Young-Bin Min Chair in Korean Literature and Literary Translation, Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia, and is the recipient of a 2018 Manhae Grand Prize in Literature.

Speakers:Bruce Fulton

Ju-Chan Fulton

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For more information, please contact Havva Karakas Keles, or to request additional accommodation arrangements, please contact Morgan Bicknell, mebickne@syr.edu