Readings in Modern Korean Literature provides advanced students (those with at least four years of college-level training in Korean) with materials that will help them understand and appreciate modern Korean literary traditions as well as challenge them to use their Korean-language competence to the fullest extent. It offers the student a wide range of literary writing, including three different genres of poetry, short stories, and essays. Each piece is accompanied by a vocabulary glossary and notes, explanations of socio-cultural details, an introduction to the author, and a translation. The textbook is distinguished by a variety of exercises designed to enhance students’ proficiency in referential reading, writing, and comprehension skills.

Available for the first time in English, the ten short stories by modern Korean women collected here touch in one way or another on issues related to gender and kinship politics. All of the protagonists are women who face personal crises or defining moments in their lives as gender-marked beings in a Confucian, patriarchal Korean society. Their personal dreams and values have been compromised by gender expectations or their own illusions about female existence. They are compelled to ask themselves "Who am I?" "Where am I going?" "What are my choices?" Each story bears colorful and compelling testimony to the life of the heroine. Some of the stories celebrate the central character’s breakaway from the patriarchal order; others expose sexual inequality and highlight the struggle for personal autonomy and dignity. Still others reveal the abrupt awakening to mid-life crises and the seasoned wisdom that comes with accepting the limits of old age. The stories are arranged in chronological order, from the earliest work by Korea’s first modern woman writer in 1917 to stories that appeared in 1995—approximately one from each decade. Most of the writers presented are recognized literary figures, but some are lesser-known voices. The introduction presents a historical overview of traditions of modern Korean women’s fiction, situating the selected writers and their stories in the larger context of Korean literature. Each story is accompanied by a biographical note on the author and a brief critical analysis. A selected bibliography is provided for further reading and research. Questioning Minds marks a departure from existing translations of Korean literature in terms of its objectives, content, and format. As such it will contribute to the growth of Korean studies, increasing the availability of material for teaching Korean literature in English, and stimulate readership of its writers beyond the confines of the peninsula.

Taking a panoramic view of Korea's dynamic literary production in the final decade of Japanese rule, When the Future Disappears locates the imprint of a new temporal sense in Korean modernism: the impression of time interrupted, with no promise of a future. As colonial subjects of an empire headed toward total war, Korean writers in this global fascist moment produced some of the most sophisticated writings of twentieth-century modernism. Yi T'aejun, Ch'oe Myongik, Im Hwa, So Insik, Ch'oe Chaeso, Pak T'aewon, Kim Namch'on, and O Changhwan, among other Korean writers, lived through a rare colonial history in which their vernacular language was first inducted into the modern, only to be shut out again through the violence of state power. The colonial suppression of Korean-language publications was an effort to mobilize toward war, and it forced Korean writers to face the loss of their letters and devise new, creative forms of expression. Their remarkable struggle reflects the stark foreclosure at the heart of the modern colonial experience. Straddling cultural, intellectual, and literary history, this book maps the different strategies, including abstraction, irony, paradox, and even silence, that Korean writers used to narrate life within the Japanese empire.

Anthology of 9 short stories and novellas by Korean women writers published between 1935 and 1998. Stories depict Korean women's lives from the mid-1930s to the end of the twentieth century.

Korean Composition is the first book in English for students of Korean language aimed not only at enhancing their writing skills and overall linguistic competence, but also at organizing and developing their ideas and thoughts with grammatically, stylistically, and culturally correct expressions. The Essential Composition section contains chapters concerned with the writing of essays, diaries and letters, document preparation, and expository writing. The Advanced Composition section considers descriptions of impressions, writing poetry, newspaper accounts, writing articles and theses, and summarizing. Each chapter consists of numerous units designed to cover words, phrases, idioms, and grammatical patterns (with sentence examples). Exercises and a model writing example are included in each unit. Advanced students who need assistance in choosing proper topics and materials as well as in using diverse expressions in creative writing will benefit from the section on steps of composition and styles of writing. English translations of model writings, an index of useful grammatical patterns, and an English-Korean glossary are provided at the end of the text. Korean Composition is aimed at college-level students who have completed at least beginning and intermediate levels of Korean. For students using the Integrated Korean series, this text is recommended for use after the completion of Advanced Intermediate 2.

“A love story between friends. It is so well written. [Kyung-sook Shin] has this use of language that is just beautiful and poetic. It’s a great book if you’re looking to escape.” —Chelsea Handler, #1 New York Times bestselling author How friendship, European literature, and a charismatic professor defy war, oppression, and the absurd Set in 1980s South Korea amid the tremors of political revolution, I’ll Be Right There follows Jung Yoon, a highly literate, twenty-something woman, as she recounts her tragic personal history as well as those of her three intimate college friends. When Yoon receives a distressing phone call from her ex-boyfriend after eight years of separation, memories of a tumultuous youth begin to resurface, forcing her to re-live the most intense period of her life. With profound intellectual and emotional insight, she revisits the death of her beloved mother, the strong bond with her now-dying former college professor, the excitement of her first love, and the friendships forged out of a shared sense of isolation and grief. Yoon’s formative experiences, which highlight both the fragility and force of personal connection in an era of absolute uncertainty, become immediately palpable. Shin makes the foreign and esoteric utterly familiar: her use of European literature as an interpreter of emotion and experience bridges any gaps between East and West. Love, friendship, and solitude are the same everywhere, as this book makes poignantly clear.

Anthology of 9 short stories and novellas by Korean women writers published between 1935 and 1998. Stories depict Korean women's lives from the mid-1930s to the end of the twentieth century.