Author and journalist Blaine Harden speaks about his remarkable and harrowing account of refugee Shin Dong-hyuk’s birth into and eventual escape from the North Korean gulag. A monumental and moving book, Harden reveals the hardships of prison life and provides a lasting testimony to the endurance of the human… MORE

University of Washington Korean Studies Director Clark W. Sorensen discusses Reassessing the Park Chung Hee Era, 1961-1979, his and Professor Hyung-a Kim's edited volume on development, political thought, democracy, and the cultural influence of the Park era. An important addition to work on this critical period, especially in light of… MORE

In marking the sixtieth anniversary of the Korean War, The Korea Society salutes the late Richard Kim, as Penguin Classics re-releases his National Book Award-nominated The Martyred. Kim's first novel is a critically acclaimed bestseller about the Korean War, and was later made into a play, opera, and film. Book… MORE

Award-winning author, editor and photojournalist Brenda Paik Sunoo presents images from Moon Tides: Jeju Island Grannies and the Sea. Jeju Island’s sea women, or haenyeo, scour the sea floor as their maternal ancestors did, harvesting seaweed, octopus, sea urchins, turban shells, and abalone. Driven by economics, these women divers plunge… MORE

  Harvard University Professor Ezra Vogel visits The Korea Society to discuss the monumental new political history he co-edited, The Park Chung Hee Era: The Transformation of South Korea. South Korea was mired in poverty in 1959, yet by 1979 was gaining significant economic influence both regionally and globally. Park… MORE

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… MORE