Category: Arts & Culture

Three poets. Three translators. One conversation.

We invite you to join us for an evening of bilingual poetry readings. Three poets – Moon Bo Young, Kim Liyoun, Kim Sono – along with three translators – Soje, Eunice Lee, Jenny Jisun Kim – explore the power of language to connect us with one another.

Not as well known to many audiences, Korean poetry contains a rich and vibrant tradition that is yet to be understood. It is through the exchanging of dialogue, breath, and verse that the moment of Korean poetry is revealed.

This program is a collaboration between The Korea Society’s Arts and Culture Department and Education Department and is moderated by Education Program Officer, Amanda Grant.

During the event, poetry collections written by all three poets will be given out in a special raffle event for in-person participants.

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

About the Speakers:

Moon Bo Young is a poet and essayist. She made her debut by winning the New Literary Award of Joongang newspaper in 2016. Her first collection of poems Pillar of Books won the Kim Soo Young Prize in 2017 and was translated into English in 2021. She published a collection of stories titled The Hill of Yawn and several essay collections, namely The Best Long Run, I threw away today because I was anxious, The era of Diary, and The Kindest Way to Hate People. Her second collection of poems was titled The Battle Ground. She also launched a subscription service called Diary Postal Delivery. The service sends out various texts, such as poems, diaries, and novels, all handwritten and mailed directly to readers’ homes. Her third collection of poems Sand bookstore has recently been published.

Soje is a poet and a translator. Soje is known for the translation of Lee Hyemi’s Unexpected Vanilla (Tilted Axis Press, 2020), Choi Jin-young’s To the Warm Horizon (Honford Star, 2021), and Lee Soho’s Catcalling (Open Letter Books, 2021). They also make chogwa, an e-zine that features one Korean poem and multiple English translations per issue.

Kim Sono is a poet, essayist, and multimedia artist. They have published two poetry collections, Night Soccer (2020) and The Film Set (2022), and the essay collection Rubato for the Unknown (2022). They currently write for Weekly Munhak, and have collaborated with Platform L, WINDMILL, Villa Hamilton, and the Suwon Museum of Art on various multimedia projects. They have also written lyrics for the K-pop band TOMORROW X TOGETHER.

Eunice Lee is a researcher, translator, and poet. Her translations of Korean poetry have appeared in The Margins (Asian American Writers’ Workshop), Asymptote Journal, chogwa, Circumference, Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature & Culture, Columbia Journal, and more. She is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Harvard University.

Kim Liyoun is a poet, writer, and visual artist. She is the author of the poetry collection Transparency Blend Space (2022) and the interdisciplinary essay collection Soft Materials (forthcoming 2024). She had her debut solo exhibition New Hands (2023) at RE:PLAT. Her poems, essays, and multi-sensory performances have been featured in various exhibitions at the National Museum of Modern Art, Korea (MMCA), Leeum Museum of Art, and Minbokjin Museum of Art Yangju City.

Jenny Jisun Kim is a visual artist and translator. She was the winner of Charm Agency’s 2022 Emerging Translator Prize, and she is currently translating Jaewon Che’s How do u want me? (working title) with the support of the American Literary Translators Association mentorship program. She also translates Korean art texts for DOOSAN Art Center and Ilmin Museum of Art.

This evening is devoted to the incendiary magic that arises when one brilliant poet translates another. For over a decade, poet Don Mee Choi (National Book Award winner, Guggenheim and MacArthur fellow)

(l) Kim Hyesoon © Jung Melmel; (r) Don Mee Choi © Dirk Skiba

This evening is devoted to the incendiary magic that arises when one brilliant poet translates another. For over a decade, poet Don Mee Choi (National Book Award winner, Guggenheim and MacArthur fellow) has been translating the fiercely iconoclastic and radically feminist poetry of Kim Hyesoon (Daesan Literary Award, Griffin Poetry Prize), one of the foremost poets of South Korea. The two will read from their works and speak about their writing and collaboration with Literary Translation at Columbia (LTAC) Director Susan Bernofsky.

@ Lenfest Center for the Arts, The Lantern
Columbia University School of the Arts
615 W. 129th Street, New York NY 10027

About the Speakers:

Kim Hyesoon is one of the most prominent and influential contemporary poets of South Korea. Her poems first appeared in Literature and Intellect (Munhak kwa jiseong), one of the two leading journals that led the intellectual and literary movement against the U.S. backed military dictatorships. Kim came into prominence from the late 1990s and was the first woman poet to receive the prestigious Kim Su-yong and Midang awards. Kim recently received the 2019 International Griffin Poetry Prize for Autobiography of Death (New Directions, 2018), the 2021 Cikada Prize, and the Samsung Ho-Am Prize in 2022. Kim’s profile appeared in The New Yorker in which she was quoted saying: “Feminism isn’t something you’re born believing. Feminism is going through life and changing yourself.” Kim’s poems in translation have appeared in various publications such as the Poetry Foundation, The New York Times, The Nation, The European Review, Guernica, and Boston Review. Her poetry has been translated into Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Danish, and Swedish. Kim is a professor emeritus of Seoul Institute of the Arts. She lives in Seoul with her husband Lee Kang-Baek, a renowned playwright, and her artist daughter Lee Fi Jae. Kim’s fourteenth book of poetry After Earth Dies, Who Will Moon Orbit? was published last year.

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Don Mee Choi is the author of DMZ Colony (Wave Books, 2020), which received the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry. Her work also includes Hardly War (Wave Books, 2016), The Morning News Is Exciting (Action Books, 2010) and several chapbooks and pamphlets of poems and essays. She is a recipient of fellowships from MacArthur, Guggenheim, Lannan, and Whiting Foundations. She was a fellow of the 2019 DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program and 2021 Guest Picador Professor-Leipzig University. She has translated several collections of Kim Hyesoon’s poetry: Anxiety of Words (Zephyr, 2006), Mommy Must Be a Fountain of Feathers (Action Books, 2008), All the Garbage of the World, Unite! (Action Books, 2011), I’m OK, I’m Pig! (Bloodaxe Books, 2014) and others, including the 2019 International Poetry Prize winning book Autobiography of Death (New Directions, 2018) and most recently, Phantom Pain Wings (New Directions, 2023). After working in Seattle for a couple of decades, Choi now lives in Berlin with her husband Jay Weaver, a musician and schoolteacher. Her forthcoming book is Mirror Nation (Wave Books, April 2024).

Join two Korean-American picture book writers as they discuss the many different layers of consideration, introspection, and deliberation that go into conceiving and writing picture books, and the importance of humor and diversity in children’s literature.

For many young readers, being able to see themselves reflected in the books they read is a profound experience. Seeing and reading accurate representations of one’s own identity and culture provide a sense of visibility and relatability. Not only are diverse representations in children’s books important for children of color, but they’re important for all children, as they offer a chance to learn realities and experiences different from their own and to appreciate that difference.

Frances Cha, the bestselling author of If I Had Your Face who has just written a humorous picture book about centuries-old dokkaebi journeying from Korea to modern New York, will be in conversation with Aram Kim, author, illustrator and designer of children’s books, about writing and illustrating Korean-themed picture books for children.

During the event, picture books by Frances Cha and Aram Kim will be available for sale.
The Goblin Twins will be available on September 5, 2023. Available for pre-order.

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

About the Speakers:

Frances Cha is the author of the novel If I Had Your Face, which was named one of the Best Books of the Year by Time Magazine, NPR, BBC and Esquire among other publications and is being translated into 11 languages. Born in Minnesota, she moved to Texas at age 4, Hong Kong at age 8 and South Korea at age 11. She received her MFA in fiction from Columbia University, where she received a Dean’s Fellowship. She worked as the assistant managing editor of Samsung Economic Research Institute’s business journal in Seoul, and as a travel and culture editor for CNN in Seoul and Hong Kong. She has taught media studies at Ewha Womens University and creative writing at Yonsei University. Currently, she teaches fiction workshop in the Columbia University MFA program. Her children’s book The Goblin Twins is forthcoming from Crown Books for Young Readers (Penguin Random House) in September 2023.

Aram Kim is an award-winning writer, illustrator, and designer of children’s picture books. She was born in Ohio, raised in South Korea, and now lives in New York. By day, she is an Art Director at Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group. At all other times, she writes and illustrates her own stories. Her debut picture book Cat on the Bus was called a “beautifully designed visual work” by School Library Journal and included in the Children’s Choice Reading List 2017 as well as New York Public Library’s summer reading list 2018. No Kimchi For Me!, about family, food, and intergenerational connections, has universal themes, and at the same time celebrates Korean culture. It was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection, Bank Street’s Best Children’s Books of the Year 2018, and 2018 A Baker’s Dozen: The Best Children’s Books for Family Literacy by The Pennsylvania Center for the Book. It’s the first one in the series Yoomi, Friends and Family which also includes Let’s Go to Taekwondo! and Sunday Funday in Koreatown. Aram’s most recent book, Tomorrow is New Year’s Day is about Seollal, a Korean celebration of the Lunar New Year that came out in December 2022. Aram is a recipient of the 2022 Mills Tannenbaum Award for Children’s Literacy.

“I read Happiness Falls in a single day. I can’t remember a book with more layers—this is a nuanced story about bias, language, ableism, racism, and family dynamics—but above all else this is a story with so many twists and turns I was riveted through the last page.”—Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author

When a father goes missing, his family’s desperate search leads them to question everything they know about him and one

“I read Happiness Falls in a single day. I can’t remember a book with more layers—this is a nuanced story about bias, language, ableism, racism, and family dynamics—but above all else this is a story with so many twists and turns I was riveted through the last page.”—Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author

When a father goes missing, his family’s desperate search leads them to question everything they know about him and one another in this thrilling page-turner, a deeply moving portrait of a family in crisis from the award-winning author of Miracle Creek.

Full of shocking twists and fascinating questions of love, language, and human connection, Happiness Falls is a mystery, a family drama, and a novel of profound philosophical inquiry. With all the powerful storytelling she brought to her award-winning debut, Miracle Creek, Angie Kim turns the missing-person story into something wholly original, creating an indelible tale of a family who must go to remarkable lengths to truly understand one another.

“Brilliant . . . amazing . . . the claim that a book will change your life often seems like exaggeration. Here the potential is real.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

In her conversation with Susan Choi, Angie Kim discusses her second novel and career.

During the event, Happiness Falls will be available for sale.

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

About the Author:

Angie Kim moved as a preteen from Seoul, South Korea, to the suburbs of Baltimore. After graduating from Interlochen Arts Academy, she studied philosophy at Stanford University and attended Harvard Law School, where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Her debut novel, Miracle Creek, won the Edgar Award, the ITW Thriller Award, the Strand Critics’ Award, and the Pinckley Prize and was named one of the best books of the year by Time, The Washington Post, Kirkus Reviews, and the Today show. Angie Kim lives in northern Virginia with her family.

About the Moderator:

Susan Choi’s first novel, The Foreign Student, won the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction. Her second novel, American Woman, was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize. Her third novel, A Person of Interest, was a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award. In 2010 she was named the inaugural recipient of the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award. Her fourth novel, My Education, received a 2014 Lammy Award. Her fifth novel, Trust Exercise, won the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction, and in 2021 she received the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award for “Flashlight.” She serves as a trustee of PEN America and teaches in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.