35 article(s) translated from Korean
O. Cuniculi
A rabbit. He turned at the sound of rustling in the bushes and spotted a ball of white fluff. What he’d mistaken for a white dog was staring at him with red eyes. He wouldn’t have known it…...
Necessary or True Happenstances: An Introduction to the Work of Hye Young-Pyun
“O. Cuniculi” is featured in Hye Young-Pyun’s third collection of short stories, Evening Courtship, for which she was awarded the prestigious Dong-in Literature Prize last year. The story…...
Passing Through Seongeup Village
Whenever I gaze into a horse’s virtuous eyes, it seems to know nothing but the indigent evening in the direction the wind is blowing from. Translation of "Seongeup maeureul jinamyeo. " By…...
Writing Poems without Meaning
Sham-seeming life gauze-mask-like thoughts is there no removing the mask from consciouness? Disposing words without meaning Writing poems without meaning Writing poems like scraps of debris scraps of shattering…...
The Boy in the Cave
Each and every person’s eyes all shine in the sky. The sea under the sky is limpid through and through. It seems the crying of countless newborn babes can be heard emerging from the sea 230 feet…...
A Monk with No Name
Today seems another good day for spreading barley or wheat to dry. He was always smiling. One of his front teeth was missing. Even alone he was always smiling. On and on he walked. Walking on and on was…...
Underground Flower
There is an orchid that only blooms underground. Because it never shows itself above ground few are said to have seen it. Only white ants can enter the blooms, drawn by the fragrance rising from the runnels…...
Cutting off a Finger
My mother's finger was cut off by a slamming door. Or should I say that she stuck her finger in it to stop the slicing wind. Honey, don't shiver, just feed the hungry wind this bloody piece of…...
How Far Does the Light
That pomegranate lives the same life, yearns for the same light. Its pointed scarlet blossom is an open mouth, "Ah," gathering every ray of light. This fall, in my red gums, pain burned belatedly, and…...
Scale and Stairs
If you climbed up the back stairs to the church a piano stood like a sad black animal in a corner of the nave. The child reflected in the black sheen of the piano opened the cover and cautiously began…...
Crying over Light Green
Even as I scoop Korean sushi into my mouth with a trembling hand, the train forces the fields of summer into my eyes. The light-green rice paddies prick my pupils. Why is the field so green? No, the word…...
Earnie
For the rap version of this story, click here. 1 She's here, she's here. Here at the office to see us. The Big Dog, her manager, comes, too. Comes in a bomb-ass Chrysler, his lackeys tag along.…...
Taklamakan Desert
Washing her hair as the sun rises a thighless one pours a dipper full of sand over her hair and lowers her head into the sand pit with a splash. The footless one tosses her hair in pendulum as she rinses…...
Diary of the Fat Sofa
I got up early in the morning, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and sat at the table. (Not true. To be honest, when I got up late this morning and sat at the table, my wife asked me to brush my teeth…...
Camel’s Eye
Note: The narrator is a South Korean soldier who has just returned from the war in Vietnam by ship and is waiting on the dock to be transported home by train. At the urging of a young sergeant who once…...
the white blood you shed
light, a red button in the sky (body, you tremble with cold a white daffodil smiling inside a glacier) light, dropping thousands of gold threads from the spot where it once jumped (body, what spider weaves…...
Garden of My Childhood
Note: The narrator and her family have fled the Korean War and arrived at a small village where they are renting a room from a one-eyed carpenter whose daughter Bu-ne is rumored to have gone mad and died.…...
The Novice at Songgwang Temple
In the mid Joseon period, when Buddhism was only practiced high in the mountains, a mendicant monk heard that the head monk at Songgwang Temple in Jogye Mountain renowned in the Way, was encouraging monastic…...
A Meal in This World
Although Mother survived a crisis and is home from the hospital she's not the same-her mind is hazy. How can I express my sorrow when she insists our guests in black suits are detectives from the KCIA…...
blossoming from the body of another
There remained a few graves at the deserted factory site They were torn up, then there were puddles Yesterday the wind blew all day long like a sweltering cotton quilt Rain this morning-a tall stalk of…...
The Man Who Sold His Shadow
Here's a question we all ask ourselves at least once when we're young: Where does that starlight come from? It's been there before I was born, and before my grandmother, and her grandmother…...
To the Longbills at Mangyeong River
From time to time, climbers ascending Mt. Everest or Nanga Parbat stumble upon migrating birds, frozen on snow-capped peaks at 8,000-meter altitudes. The cross-continental flight formation these birds…...
that dark cold blue
Winter day, under a short tree The quick hurried steps That dark cold blue light Drawn out by a fleeting glimpse The light entered me Stayed and lived in me There are certain lights, so short One can see…...
White Horse
Worrying about a white horse, so white, suddenly barging into my room: What if the horse fills up the room, jamming it, settling in? What if the horse locks me behind its large eyeball, not letting me…...
Halls of the National Museum
I lost sight of my child in the Yi dynasty hall: Like a forgotten royal concubine, I had been staring at the king's rice bowl, goblet and spoon. I dash back at once to the Goryeo dynasty hall, shedding…...
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