Hwang Sok-yong is one of South Korea’s foremost authors, a writer of worldwide renown, and the recipient of Korea’s highest literary prizes and numerous international awards. His work, which grapples with the troubled history of the divided Korean peninsula, has earned him the rare achievement of a wide readership and appreciation in both North and South Korea. Americans were first to exposed to Hwang’s writing when his novel, The Guest (Seven Stories Press), was published in the U.S. in 2005. The Old Garden, is the second American release. Recently, Hwang began experimenting with a new mode of storytelling in the digital age by serializing his novels on the Internet and running an online magazine.

Theodore Hughes received his Ph.D. in modern Korean literature from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2002. His current research interests include coloniality; proletarian literature and art; cultures of national division; and visuality and the global Cold War. Recent publications include “Return to the Colonial Present: Ch’oe In-hun’s Cold War Pan-Asianism” (forthcoming in positions: east asia cultures critique); “Dongducheon: Everyday Life, Violence, and the State of Exception” (BOL, 2008); ‘“North Koreans’ and other Virtual Subjects: Kim Yŏng-ha, Hwang Suk-young, and National Division in the Age of Posthumanism” (The Review of Korean Studies, 2008); “Korean Memories of the Vietnam and Korean Wars: A Counter-History” (Japan Focus, 2007); “Korean Visual Modernity and the Developmental Imagination” (SAI, 2006); “Development as Devolution: Nam Chŏng-hyŏn and the ‘Land of Excrement’ Incident” (Journal of Korean Studies, 2005); “Producing Sovereign Spaces in the Emerging Cold War World Order: Immediate Postliberation ‘North’ and ‘South’ Korean Literature” (Han’guk Munhak Yŏn’gu, 2005); Panmunjom and Other Stories by Lee Ho-Chul  (Norwalk: EastBridge, 2005).