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August 21, 2018
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Country in Focus: Korea

Translators uplift Korean literature to global heights

(From The Korea Herald. Link to the complete article given below)

Every time Goksel Turkozu browsed through a bookstore in Turkey, he felt there could be more books of Korean literature in translation in his country where the passion for everything Korean runs high.

A devotee of Korean literature and professor at Erciyes University in the city of Kayseri, Cappadocia, Turkozu has adapted several well-known Korean novels into the Turkish language since he first set foot in Seoul in 1990 as a student.

His decadeslong dedication to spread Korea’s literary imagination to his homeland won him the Korea Translation Award given by the Literature Translation Institute of Korea on Wednesday, alongside other translators. The event was established in 1993 for the purpose of encouraging quality translation of Korean literature and its overseas promotion and publication. Since 2013, the award has been expanded to cover less widely spoken languages around the world.

“The popularity of Korean cultural wave Hallyu is still high in Turkey after more than 10 years,” Turkozu told The Korea Herald on Tuesday at a press conference in Seoul, one day ahead of the award ceremony recognizing the contributions of 150 translators and related professionals.

Country in Focus: Korea

Ten works of contemporary Korean literature in translation

(From The Booklist Reader. Link to the complete article given below)

Despite Maureen Corrigan’s rather nasty NPR review of Korean author Kyung-sook Shin’s 2011 Stateside debut, Please Look After Mom—her phrase “cheap consolations of kimchee-scented Kleenex fiction” caused particular affront—Mom became a major bestseller. In a stroke of well-deserved vindication, Shin became the first woman to win the Man Asian Literary Prize and has been credited with revitalizing the Korean publishing industry when her international critical success and strong sales figures sparked a worldwide interest in Korean fiction.

In 2013, Dalkey Archive Press, in partnership with the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, began publishing the Library of Korean Literature, intended to present “modern classics of Korean literature in translation, featuring the best Korean authors from the late modern period through the present day.” The collection now has 25 novels and story collections readily available to anglophone readers.

Since Han Kang’s The Vegetarian won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize, even more Korean fiction has made it west. Here are ten titles (linked to their Booklist reviews where available) to expand your reading horizons.

Black Flower, by Young-ha Kim, translated by Charles La Shure

Longlisted for the 2012 Man Asian Literary Prize, Black Flower is a fictionalized account of little-known, yet utterly fascinating historical events. In 1905, 1,033 Koreans left the port of Jemulpo (today’s Incheon) on the Ilford, a British merchant ship, and arrived (after two deaths, one birth) in Mexico’s Yucatán as indentured laborers to be parceled out to henequen plantations. The Koreans believed they were escaping the brutal Japanese colonization of their homeland; instead, they were sold into slave-like servitude. Within the Koreans’ experience, Kim (The Republic Is Calling You) also bears witness to local Mexican history, including the abuses of colonial Christianity, the mistreatment of the indigenous Mayans, and the Mexican Revolution, which eventually (surprisingly!) involves a small band of Korean nationals. Kim explains in his ending “Author’s Note” that the genesis of Black Flower is rooted in a second-hand airplane conversation that seemed “too mythical,” and eventually led Kim to Mérida in Mexico’s Yucatán, then Tikal and Antigua in Guatemala, to research this “forgotten historical moment.”

August 21, 2018
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Country in Focus: Korea

Book Review: Was that Mountain Really There? By Park Wan-suh (Translated by Hannah Kim)

Reviewed by Anushka Ray

Was that Mountain Really There

Title: Was that Mountain Really There?
Author: Park Wan-suh
Translator: Hannah Kim
Publisher: Kitaab International Pte ltd
Pages: 332
Buy

Autobiographies typically present the picture of perfect bravery; they are a testament to fortified bulwarks authors build up as they trudge along, with a complimentary voice depicting a clear story line and eventual victory. Was that Mountain Really There? is rare in its sense where the narrator remains at her core so impenetrably humble and human, it is no longer a retelling of a story. Instead, it becomes a reflection on adolescence, a growing up which just so happened to coincide with the 1950-1953 Korean War. Park Wan-suh upholds an honest narrative voice, with a raw sincerity that transforms even the most tumultuous of moments into something delicate and fragile.

Every word has a distinct purpose. Even the seemingly mindless title is explained in the author’s foreword, with the retelling of how Wan-suh witnessed the construction of a new gymnasium in replacement of a hideous mound in her hometown. This development, although praised by the neighbourhood, somehow struck a chord within her, as she campaigns to immortalize the memory of the small hill. The strange memory effortlessly portrays the sense of futility which existed in her childhood, especially growing up in an age where everything around was demolished. It is this fear of history being forgotten which compelled Wan-suh to publish the novel, a way to tell the world ‘that’s how we lived’.

Was that Mountain Really There? explores the life of author Park Wan-suh as a 20-year-old caught in the Korean War in 1951. Accompanied by her relatives, Wan-suh navigates the eruptive state of Korea, where the constant battle for power between the North and South Koreans controls their actions. She navigates the country both literally and figuratively, as she briefly escapes Seoul and finds a short-lived refuge in Gyoha (part of the then country Paju) before returning home. While a palpable fear is instilled from the opening pages with Wan-suh’s brother suffering from a North Korean inflicted gun wound, there is a clear reluctance to encounter South Korean soldiers due to the family’s previous communist history. All this accumulates to a constant state of paranoia when faced with any militia, and an underlying commentary on whether either army was in the right. This paranoia sustains throughout the novel but gradually grows subdued and muted, dictating their decisions yet not exposing them to any violence.

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August 17, 2018
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Vertebrate Publishing’s new climb: Bringing adventuring women into the picture

(From Publishing Perspectives. Link to the complete post given below)

The UK’s Vertebrate Publishing is an independent house that focuses on mountain biking and climbing—sports found near its base in Sheffield. And its managing director, Jon Barton, can describe Vertebrate in a way that few publishers today might be able to match: the house has a strong, stable consumer base of male readers.

But given current events, Barton is heading down a new path in his trail-fans’ title list.

Waymaking, an anthology about women’s outdoor adventuring, is a new release set for October 4.

The book is edited by Claire Carter, Helen Mort, Heather Dawe, and Camilla Barnard, and it’s about “redressing the balance of gender in outdoor adventure literature” according to the company’s promotional material.

With writings from Katie Ives, Bernadette McDonald, Sarah Outen, Anna McNuff, filmmaker Jen Randall, and other accomplished women adventurers, the book is meant to jibe with “an era when wilderness conservation and gender equality are at the fore.”

In Publishing Perspectives’ exchange with Barton, our first question was whether the anthology, rather than being a one-time token event, marks a new direction he intends to pursue.

“A very big yes,” he says. “Mountaineering literature specifically, and adventure lit in general, is horribly underrepresented by women.”

“Some of this has to do with strong female role models arriving late in the day,” Barton says, “so their story—and stories they’re inspiring—are still evolving.

“And a lot of it has to do with publishing and market habits. Waymaking is a stepping stone along the way for us.”

August 17, 2018
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Wall of great Tajik writers

(From Atlas Obscura. Link to the complete article given below)

The “Wall” is the facade of the Writers’ Union building in Dushanbe, home to an association of novelists, poets, playwrights, and other writers. The large wall is carved with nine niches containing eleven life-size statues of famous Tajik writers, a tribute to Tajikistan’s Persian and Soviet history.

The 8th-century “Adam of Poets,” Rudaki, justifiably takes the centre stage. He is considered a father of classical Persian literature, though sadly only a small portion of his work has survived the test of time. Other notable writers on the wall include poet Ferdowsi (940-1020); poet, mathematician and astronomer Omar Khayyam (1048-1131); writer and intellectual Sadriddin Ayni (1878-1954); and poet Mirzo Tursunzoda (1911-1977). In the garden next to the building is a large statue of Ayni and famous Soviet writer Maxim Gorky sitting around a table, absorbed in conversation.

The Writers’ Union building was designed by renowned architect E. Salikhov and constructed in the early 1980s. The structure immediately became an exemplary manifestation of Soviet Modernist architecture, a trend that incorporated local sensibilities within the Soviet architectural tradition, which emphasized social purposefulness, grandiosity (regarding size), and frugality (regarding construction materials). All these features are clearly seen in Salikhov’s creation in Dushanbe.

August 17, 2018
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The fictional foods we wish were real

(From Atlas Obscura. Link to the complete post given below)

Sure, you can buy a Wonka Bar at any candy store. You can drink a sugary Butterbeer at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter attraction in Orlando. And you can find a recipe for Lembas Bread on about a million Lord of the Rings fan sites. But none of these initially fictional foods could ever live up to how we imagined they would taste when we first saw or read about them. Fictional dishes invite us to open our mental palates to the possibility of new flavors and experiences. And because they are the product of imagination, they often also carry an emotional weight that real food, no matter how exotic, can rarely bring.

Recently, we asked Atlas Obscura readers to tell us which fictional food had sparked their imaginations more than any other. The results were delicious. You told us about your love for make-believe foods from books, television shows, films, and more. Most importantly, you got super specific about what you think these foods must taste like, including an alien dish that reminds one of you of “raw horse meat or sashimi with a kind of hot spice.”

We’ve collected our favorite responses below. Next time you encounter a mouth-watering food that doesn’t exist, try and decide for yourself what incredible, impossible flavors it might actually have.

August 17, 2018
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Parties demand cancellation of Lit Fest

(From The Hindu. Link to the complete post given below)

An alliance of Left parties, the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) and the Dravida Kazhagam (DK) will stage a protest near the Alliance Francaise on August 17, the opening day of the Pondy Lit Fest (PLF) 2018, demanding the cancellation of the festival, as it allegedly provides a forum for the promotion of right wing ideology.

Announcing this at a joint press conference here on Tuesday, State secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI) A.M. Salim said five political parties would write to the French Consulate here and to the Embassy in New Delhi, complaining of the decision of the president of the Alliance Francaise to allow the institution to be used as a venue for an event of this nature.

The institution was started with the aim to promote the French language and culture around the world. He said it stood for peace and harmony. He urged the Chief Minister not to attend the inaugural programme.

Dubbing the Pondy Lit Fest as “an event promoted by the RSS,” R. Rajangam, State secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M), alleged that the RSS was using the literary platform to spread their ideology.

Read more at The Hindu link here

August 16, 2018
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Top 10 books about Americans abroad

(From The Guardian. Link to the complete article given below)

My second novel, Feast Days, is narrated by a young American woman whose husband is relocated from New York to São Paulo. “We were Americans abroad,” she says. The novel of Americans far from home has a long history, and is perhaps distinct from its cousin, the novel of Britons overseas. Both get into a fair bit of bother away from native soil, but Americans tend to be viewed as the more innocent – citizens of a country that was once a colony, and which even now can’t quite see itself as an empire. This division is best embodied in the jaded Fowler and bright-eyed Pyle of Graham Greene’s The Quiet American. That book’s lesson is clear: you can be innocent and still cause a lot of trouble.

Innocence, in the classic novel of Americans abroad, tends to take the form of a lot of drinking and a lot of watching Spaniards being gored in the ring by bulls. But you don’t need me to tell you to read The Sun Also Rises. The same goes for The Sheltering Sky, The Names, Leaving the Atocha Station, A Sport and a Pastime and Tropic of Cancer.

And there are others, a long list of books written by American white men about American white men doing American white man things in foreign countries. Many of them are great. But in the 21st century, the subject takes in so many other voices, other stories: the experiences of American women; the experiences of Americans born elsewhere, returning to the country of their parents and grandparents or travelling as Americans for the first time; the experiences of LGBT Americans navigating new and uncertain terrain.

These are 10 of my favourite books that both handle and complicate a venerable theme.

1. Questions of Travel by Elizabeth Bishop
Bishop’s finest volume of poetry, which she wrote while she was living in Brazil after winning the Pulitzer prize for her previous collection, gives a portrait of a singular American abroad. There was never a writer better equipped to treat the expatriate experience with the richness, irony, self-deprecation, and dry wit it deserves. “Oh, tourist, / is this how the country is going to answer you / and your immodest demands for a different world?”

August 16, 2018
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Mohsin Hamid: ‘It’s important not to live one’s life gazing towards the future’

(From The Guardian. Link to the complete interview given below)

Mohsin Hamid appears to have a preternatural ability to summon up the spirits of his time. He finished writing his latest novel, Exit West, which was published early last year and shortlisted for the Man Booker prize, well before Trump and Brexit brought questions of borders and national identity to the forefront of the global narrative. The novel was in part a response to the migrant crisis that was unfolding in various corners of the world as Hamid was writing, but it also predicted with almost uncanny prescience the rise of nativist paranoia and racial intolerance, which have become such features of life in 2018.

The novelist Kamila Shamsie, a friend of Hamid, told me another story about his proleptic powers. “On September 9 or 10, 2001, I was having dinner with Mohsin in London and he told me about the book he was working on,” Shamsie said. “It was about a young Pakistani man doing very well in the corporate world in New York. Despite all his success, one day he found himself listening closely to a speech by an extremist Muslim – it wasn’t the religious content of the man’s words that caught his attention, but the political content. I saw Mohsin again on September 12, 2001. ‘Mohsin, your novel… ?’ I said. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I think I have to go on writing it.’ ‘Of course you do,’ I said.”

That novel, Hamid’s second book, became The Reluctant Fundamentalist and was seen by many as the definitive literary response to 9/11. Certainly it was far more successful both critically and commercially than the attempts of more established authors to address the twin towers. John Updike, Martin Amis, Don DeLillo – the great and good of Anglo-American letters queued up to respond to the attacks, but it was Hamid’s protagonist Changez, bursting with charisma and ambition, who spoke with the greatest clarity and authority about what might have driven the terrorists to act.

August 15, 2018
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Book excerpt: Job be Damned by Rishi Piparaiya

job be damned - cover

From Chapter 13

SENIOR LEADER SPECIAL: EMPLOYEE MANIPULATION
Manipulating with appreciation and meaningless rewards

Anyone who is not a senior executive is requested to log off this chapter. We are going to be discussing manipulation strategies and insights into our deviousness will give you an unfair advantage.

Great, now that we only have top management reading, here goes: employees need to be kept motivated and engaged, at least occasionally. It’s a waste of time because they are really not important. While most corporations rhapsodically claim that their people are their most important asset, it is all bollocks. The most important asset of Google is its search algorithm—if that were to suddenly vanish, all their so-called most important assets would be sitting around doodling home pages in Mountain View. Likewise, the most important asset of Coke is its secret formula. The most important asset of Apple is its products. As the pointy-haired boss in Scott Adams’ The Dilbert Principle states, employees are in fact the corporation’s ninth most important assets, right after carbon paper.

That said, you still might have a few foot soldiers who need to be kept suitably engaged and it’s imperative that you identify them rather than waste your efforts in keeping everyone charged up. You can either use complicated psychological tools and personality tests or simply adopt the Job Be Damned Boffins and Bozos grid to pigeonhole all your employees.

Motivating the Boffins

Once you have classified all your staff, focus on motivating the boffins.

Pretend to care about their development

Employees want to believe that someone gives a damn about them so act as if you do. Learning motivates early careers so pretend to share your vast experience—gift the latest management book or have them attend some wishy-washy training programme. Middle management professionals crave increased responsibility—ironic given that one’s sole objective should be to avoid work. Send them on international jaunts, award home-printed certificates and write them LinkedIn recommendations—anything that looks like a progressive step in their career will keep them motivated. The downside of investing in employees is that it makes them more marketable and they might leave to join competitors. However, effect drug-induced amnesia as part of the exit formalities—the ungrateful wretches should forget everything that they learnt at your expense.

Boffins: Must-have employees with useful skills and attributes

Divers	Enthusiastic and eager to please; they dive straight into a project and get it started
Systematics	Masters at organization, creating flow charts, to-do lists, pros and cons columns and schedules
Coordinators	Enjoy directing things along and putting some order into chaos
Specialists	Experts in one particular subject
Conscientious doers	The engine of every team and the ones who do all the real work
Glib communicators	Great at articulating complicated concepts to the people who matter

Bozos: Useless dead-weights who do more harm than good

Gyaani babas	Spout theoretical wisdom unbacked by execution capabilities
Naysayers	Party pooping, energy-draining pessimists who have all the reasons why your plans won’t work
Socialists	Mother hens who don’t care about what gets accomplished as long as everyone is happy and participating
Conspiracy theorists	Everything about the organization, team and task is a dark conspiracy
Dumbos	Double-digit Iqs who incessantly ask irrelevant questions
Spectators	Step back and watch, occasionally piping in with useless suggestions

Conduct Employee Engagement Activities

Interacting with personnel is excellent for your morale. Conduct breakout meetings, hang-outs, online chats and parties. Have the occasional whine-and-dine lunch where you swallow the unpalatable canteen food while chatting with them. Keep the interaction one way—you talk, they listen. Have a Q&A session at the end but make a mental note of anyone who has asked you controversial questions and get your revenge in the next appraisal cycle.

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