Translating Korean literature
by An Sonjae
(A short text for the Changbi Weekly Commentary, a blog run by the Korean publishing company / review. Available online in Korean translation
Koreans often claim that Korean literature is almost unknown outside of
Korea because so little of it has been translated and published. That
is not really true, since more than 70 volumes of Korean literature in
English translation have been published since 2001, and probably more
than that in translation into other languages. Another frequently heard
claim is that Korean literature is badly translated and therefore
cannot receive a Nobel Prize in Literature. The first answer to that is
that in recent years, certain Nobel-winners have had almost none of
their works translated prior to receiving the award. Translation and
successful marketing are not prior conditions to winning a Nobel Prize.
The second answer is that most of the translations of Korean literature
published in the last 10 years that I have seen are of a quite
acceptable quality, in that they represent accurately enough the
qualities of the original. The third is that the members of the Swedish
Academy, responsible for giving the Nobel Prize in Literature, are (in
many people’s opinion, including my own) clearly not qualified to make
judgments on the relative qualities of works of literature from across
the globe, with the result that most of their recent decisions have
been deeply flawed.
However, there are certainly problems facing the translation and
promotion of Korean literature. First, the choice of works to be
translated is problematic. Usually, the Korean cultural or government
authorities want to promote the translation of widely-admired,
established, “famous” Korean writers, as part of the general campaign
designed to raise worldwide awareness of Korea by image-enhancing.
Academic specialists of Korean literary history often suggest that the
translation of works they judge significant in the historical
development of modern Korean literature must be encouraged. Meanwhile,
commercial publishers in the outside world today have only one concern:
they want to publish works that will sell sufficiently well to make a
significant financial profit and ensure a high profile for themselves.
There is a direct conflict between the “documentary information”
project of the Korean side and the “success / profit” requirement of
the foreign publishers, made worse by the general lack of awareness
within Korea of what kind of literary works are currently selling well
in London, Paris, or New Delhi.
Nothing is more frustrating for those involved in literary translation
than to be told that Korea expects the whole world to admire the work
of Korean writers, because their work is admired by Koreans. Recently,
I was encouraged to hear that a well-known Korean writer had criticized
the way in which so many younger authors use first-person narrators and
write in a “realistic’ style without any use of the literary
imagination. By implication (I have not seen the full text of his
comments) I think he was also criticizing the lack of narratorial
complexity in much Korean fiction. So many works of Korean fiction that
I have seen start at the beginning, relate events in a chronological
order with occasional flashbacks, and slide to an awkward end on the
last pages. This is not how successful fiction is being written in the
world at large.
Therefore, the most important single task facing Korea in its wish to
“globalize” Korean literature is to educate Korean writers and readers
about what the world’s best young writers are producing today. The most
important task of translation and publication at the present time is
not from Korean but into Korean. The reported current success of
fiction written in Japan is a confirmation of this. The declining sales
within Korea of works by many established Korean writers must not be
too quickly attributed to the modern fixation on audio-visual gadgets.
It is also a sign that Korean readers want something better, something
really new, entertaining and (at least sometimes) thought-provoking. By
refusing to commission good translations of contemporary world fiction,
Korean publishers are harming the development of Korean literature.
Everyone knows that in today’s world, poetry mostly sells very poorly,
and it is fiction that usually wins the prizes, makes the critical
headlines, earns the profits, and gets turned into movies. Why, then,
has so much more Korean poetry been published in English than Korean
fiction, in the last 20 years? I myself have published only 3 volumes
of fiction, compared to almost 20 volumes of poetry. One answer that I
would give is that Korean poetry is often far more interesting and
lively than fiction in translation. Many Korean poets write about
specifically Korean life experiences in ways that can be represented in
translation; their poems remain alive and convincing, and uniquely
human. Others, of course, especially those who depend mainly on
qualities of the Korean language for their poetic effect, can hardly be
adequately represented in translation.
For overseas readers of poetry, the impact of certain Korean poems is
intense and unforgettable; I know, because they have told me. By
contrast, the customary response to Korean fiction is a single
question: “Why is it so depressing?” Poetry allows the reader to hear a
human voice expressing complex, personal responses to often painful
situations, briefly, intensely. Of course, the novel is often
considered to be a form of poetry, but Korean novelists fail to see
this. Elegant style, varying narrative rhythms, ambiguities of
interpretation, plural narratorial voices, complexity in strategy are
all fundamental aspects of the novel-as-poem that are too often lacking
in works written by Korean authors.
In part, of course, they are not helped by living in a culture that has
not developed an effective dialogue between the writer and the literary
critic. Literary criticism expressed in the form of (sometimes
ferocious) book reviews is an essential part of international literary
discourse. The greatest danger facing any writer is self-indulgence;
without thoughtful, challenging reviews, what writer can hope to
improve her skills, correct weaknesses, develop a mature art? In a
culture like Korea’s, where “face” and “fame” are dominant
considerations, the need for honest criticism is often denied; that is
terrible. The still powerful vertical structures by which “senior”
writers exercise patronage and evaluation over those younger need to be
abolished, new doors must open, new liberties must be taken, if there
is to be a rebirth of Korean literature in creative contact with what
is being written in other countries (not first of all or necessarily
those of North America or Europe). That new Korean literature will be
far more likely to be acclaimed when it is translated; only then will
Korean literature have become an integral part of world literature.