My Korean Deli
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- Category: Book Café
Ben Ryder Howe, formerly of The Paris Review and a contributor to The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and Outside, discusses his recently published memoir, My Korean Deli. Howe describes the trials and triumphs of his Korean-born wife’s decision to repay her parents' self-sacrifice by buying them a store. My Korean Deli follows the store's tumultuous life, and paints the portrait of an extremely unlikely partnership among characters from Brooklyn, Seoul, and Puritan New England. Owning the deli becomes a transformative experience as the family struggles to salvage the original gift—and family harmony—while sorting out issues of values, work, and identity.
Homer Hulbert: Crusader for Korea
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- Category: Book Café
The Korea Society presents Dong Jin Kim, author of Crusader for Korea, a biography of Dr. Homer B. Hulbert (1863-1949), a “hidden hero” of Korean independence. The publication is the culmination of years of effort by the author to secure a proper place in Korean history for the accomplishments of foreigners, such as Dr. Hulbert, who lived their lives in the service of Korea.
Wednesday, April 6
Your Republic Is Calling You
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- Category: Book Café
The Korea Society welcomes beloved Korean author Young-ha Kim as we celebrate the publication of his fourth novel, Your Republic Is Calling You, in English translation. Kim has participated in the famed Iowa Writers’ Workshop, won all three of the prestigious Korean literary prizes in a single year (2004), has had major motion pictures based on his work, and is one of the first modern Korean writers to be translated by a major American publishing house.
Emotionally taut and psychologically astute, Your Republic Is Calling You reveals the depth of one particularly gripping family secret and the ways in which people sometimes never really know the ones they love. An aficionado of Heineken, soccer, and sushi, family man Gi-yeong is also a North Korean spy who has been living among his enemies for twenty-one years. Suddenly, he receives a mysterious email—a possible directive from the home office to come in from the cold.
Spanning the course of one day, the novel confronts moral questions on the small and large scale, and addresses the political and cultural transformations that have shaped Korea since the 1980s.
Tuesday, October 12
6:30PM Reading and Reception
Literary Cafe: Passages
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- Category: Book Café
Award-winning author Young-ha Kim examines the journey away from Communism through the stories of North Korean defectors he interviewed while researching his latest novel, Your Republic is Calling You. The evening will also include a screening of Mikhail Zheleznikov’s For Home Viewing, a short film that depicts the final days of the Cold War through the life changes of the Russian filmmaker.
Tuesday, February 15
6:30PM
The Red Room: Stories of Trauma in Contemporary Korea
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- Category: Book Café
Join The Korea Society for a candle-lit evening of literary reflections on the persistence of trauma in everyday life. Translators Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton read from The Red Room, with highlights from Pak Wan-So’s “In the Realm of the Buddha,” O Chong-hui’s “Spirit on the Wind,” and Im Ch’or-u’s “The Red Room.” A literary bookend to The Korean War Today conference, this Book Cafe takes place in The Korea Society Gallery. As space is limited, advance registration is required.
Monday, September 136PM Reading and Light Refreshments
Read more: The Red Room: Stories of Trauma in Contemporary Korea
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