[KS] Book Announcement of AZAEA

[Young Jun Lee]

Book Announcement – Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature and Culture,
Volume 13

Dear Colleagues:

I am pleased to announce that Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature and
Culture, Volume 13, is now available in print and in eBook (PDF) format.

(The eBook is now live on MUSE: https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/42310 )

ISSN: 1939-6120

ISBN: 978-0-9993138-1-7

Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature & Culture Volume 13 (2020)

[image: Azalea 13 Book Cover]

*Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature and Culture: Volume Thirteen*
Edited by Young-Jun Lee, Professor, Kyung Hee University, South Korea

*Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature & Culture* promotes Korean literature
among English-language readers. Each issue may include works of
contemporary Korean writers and poets, as well as essays and book reviews
by Korean studies professors in the United States. *Azalea* introduces to
the world new writers as well as promising translators, providing the
academic community of Korean studies with well-translated texts for college
courses. Writers from around the world also share their experience of
Korean literature or culture with wider audiences.

*Editor's Note*
South Korea is a republic of poetry. A phenomenon absent in other countries
can be found in the South Korean poetry publishing world. In recent
decades, the scale of poetry sales seems to be staggering, but in the 1980s
and 1990s, there were several poetry books selling at least a million
volumes, including some selling in the multi-millions. The number of new
poetry books has been steady for decades, averaging around 500 each year.
In almost every bookstore, there is a dedicated poetry section, and in
large bookstores, there are sections where poetry bestsellers are
exclusively collected and displayed.

Several large publishers continue to publish poetry series that have lasted
for decades, and it is an honor to be included in these series. A poet who
has their work included in such a series can earn an annual royalty based
on book sales. In most countries, receiving royalty payments for publishing
poetry is unrealistic, except for Nobel Prize–winning poets. Perhaps South
Korea is the only country where it is not strange for poets to get paid to
publish their work in literary magazines and receive a royalty for their
books. Of course, it does not mean that there are millionaire poets.
However, some poets in South Korea are paid considerably for their poetry;
it is not rare that bookshops will hold book-signings for poets, whose
books sometimes sell more than a hundred thousand volumes.

The most popular poets become celebrities and even appear on TV talk shows.
In this cultural environment, it is only natural that there are many people
who aspire to become poets, and compete for inclusion in prestigious series
of poetry. Critics have at times decried the phenomenon that some were
related to such major publishers as literary powers. This phenomenon goes
to show how the Republic of Korea is indeed a republic of poetry.

The special feature of this issue of *Azalea* carries a feast of research:
eight essays on modern Korean poetry, thanks to the endeavors of the two
guest editors, Jae Won Chung and Benoit Berthelier. From the beginning
period of the 1920s, described by Ku In-mo and David Krolikoski, to the
genealogy of modernism, written by Jae Won Edward Chung, to North Korean
poetry, covered by Benoit Berthelier and Sonja Haeussler, to
twenty-first-century South Korean poetry, examined by Cho Kang-sŏk and
Ivanna Sang Een Yi, this feature evinces that the field of modern Korean
poetry has gotten in firm stakes.

In the poetry section, alongside the somewhat male-dominant history of
modern Korean poetry sketched by the aforementioned research, we have three
women poets: Choi Jeongrye, Kim So Yeon, and Kim Yideum. Their poems,
deeply immersed in their interiorities, stand out in the current field of
Korean poetry.

The Writer in Focus introduces Kim Hoon, currently one of the most popular
writers in South Korea. Kim Hoon's literary world, which is often said to
have opened a unique style of vernacular Korean writing, especially in
historical novels, shows how much poetry has combined with prose. The
metaphoric images in his writing often reach poetry, about which Korean
readers have been enthusiastic.

Bookstores in Korea are said to have recently seen increased sales of books
because people are remaining at home, much like those in the era of the
Decameron. After 9/11 in America, poetry was suddenly summoned to public
interest, and poetry reading events became quite popular for a while. We
send this issue to readers with the hope that they might have more time for
reading poems than before.


Published by the Korea Institute, Harvard University
























































































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전화 02-961-9311 (연구소)
셀폰 010-6211-7012
youngjun.lee at gmail.com
youngjunlee at khu.ac.kr

Editor-in-Chief,
Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature and Culture
Korea Institute, Harvard University
1730 Cambridge St #228
Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
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