[KS] Recent book

[Brother Anthony]

I may be wrong, but I have no memory of having seen any announcement of the following book, which I reckon 
will be very useful to people teaching modern Korean literature, especially survey classes.

Twentieth-Century Korean Literature, by Yi Nam-ho, U Ch'angje, Yi Kwangho, Kim Mi Hyun, Translated by Ryu 
Youngju

EastBridge Signature Books Series: EastBridge Library of Korea
ISBN 1-891936-45-x (pb) $24.95
(see: http://www.eastbridgebooks.org/20thCentury_moreinfo.html )

The book is only 137 pages long and offers a succinct summary of the social / historical background for 
each period of the 20th century's literature, followed by a survey of the main characteristics of the 
poetry and fiction of each period, short biographical accounts of the careers of the major writers, and 
illustrates these with equally brief summaries of major works of fiction, or quotations of individual 
poems. Drama is not much discussed, but is mentioned. There is an index of writers' names. North Korean 
literature is not included.

The book was commissioned by the Korea Literature Translation Institute specifically for an overseas 
audience, written by a series of well-known Korean literary critics, then translated / adapted for 
non-Korean readers (the book does not exist in a Korean language edition, so far as I know). I should add 
that there is a feeling (in sponsoring circles) that the layout of the book might have been better (more 
professionally) designed, with photos of the writers, but so far as I am concerned, I reckon that its 
contents make it extremely valuable as it is. The publication of the book was much delayed. I was once 
asked to do a proof-reading of the English; I found virtually nothing to correct, but at least I have read 
it carefully, and feel that it deserves a wide distribution. In particular, it includes wide coverage of 
the many women whose writing has been so important in the last 20 years.

EastBridge is a really small press that deserves thanks for having published several Korean-related titles, 
listed at http://www.eastbridgebooks.org/page13.html It is to be hoped that they will soon be able to 
publish books far better designed than those they have recently produced.

Brother Anthony (An Sonjae)
Sogang University, Seoul, Korea
http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/