After the nation's full-scale translation efforts began 20 years ago, there have been a total of 2,340 works of Korean literature translated into 27 foreign languages, according to the Korean Literature Translation Institute. LTI Korea, a nonprofit organization supporting the translation and overseas publication of Korean literature, was founded in 2001 and officially approved as a government-affiliated institute in 2005.
The problem is, most of these translations have not been received well overseas. Most of the Korean authors who have had overseas success (Yi Munyol, Pak Wan-so, Kim Young-ha) have done so with foreign publishers using non KLTI translators.
ReplyDeleteKLTI is not great at assessing what foreigners will like in fiction.
Charles Montgomery
www.ktlit.com