Book Cafe and SPECIAL RECEPTION: The Old Garden

Details: Category: Literary

2009_10_29_Hwang_Sok_yong_bookcover On October 29, 2009 The Korea Society held a special reception with prize-winning author Hwang Sok-yong to mark the release of his major novel, The Old Garden, in English translation. During the reception, Mr. Hwang discussed the literary life and his new book with Theodore Hughes, Assistant Professor of Modern Korean Literature, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University.

Hwang Sok-yong is one of Korea’s most revered novelists, and The Old Garden, published in translation by Seven Stories Press, is his masterwork. A sweeping history of modern Korea, The Old Garden was published in anticipation of the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War. In it, Hwang expresses timeless themes—the endurance of love and the price of commitment to a cause—while depicting a singular generation that sacrificed youth, liberty, and often life, for the dream of a better tomorrow.

“Hwang Sok-yong is undoubtedly the most powerful voice of the novel in East Asia.” - Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe

Thursday, October 29, 2009
6:30 PM-7:00 PM ♦ Reception
7:00 PM-8:30 PM ♦ Reading, Q&A & Reception

BOOK CAFE and SPECIAL RECEPTION :

The Old Garden

with

Hwang Sok-yong
Prize-winning Author of The Guest & The Old Garden

and

Theodore Hughes
Assistant Professor of Modern Korean Literature, Columbia University

Thursday, October 29, 2009
6:30 PM-7:00 PM ♦ Reception
7:00 PM-8:30 PM ♦ Reading, Q&A & Reception

The Korea Society
950 Third Avenue @ 57th Street, 8th Floor
(Building entrance on SW corner of Third Avenue and 57th Street)

For more information or to register for the program,
contact Natalee Newcombe at 212-759-7525, ext. 328, or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

About the Speaker

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).