Korean Literatures’ Biggest Task to overcome

 Korean Literatures’ Biggest Task to overcome

Delivering the Korean beauty through translation

          
          Author Shin Kyung Sook’s book ‘Please Look after Mom’ has been acknowledged not only in Korea, but also world widely for its sentimental and cultural writing. Like this book, manyKorean literatures are known for its unique and beautiful portrayals. Yet Korean literatures still have not been recognized through Nobel Prize of the literature field or big world prizes. In order to receive a prize in the world contests, the literature needs to be translated to English. In this process the Korean literatures loose their traditional beauty. It is obvious that one of the biggest tasks that Korean literatures have to face in the global century is keeping its own beauty during the translations.

To overcome such tasks, there is a library made by an organization working in the translation field. The Korea Literature Translation Institute is an organization made in 2001 to spread Korean literatures to the world. This institute performs tasks to translate Korean literatures to different languages, distribute these books to other countries and also run an Academy to train students to translate. At first there was only a collection of translated books. However as the number of books grew, the collection of books expanded as a library in 2007, which is the library now known as the Korean Literature Translating Library. Korean literatures go through the translation process at the Institute in various different languages and then they are delivered to the library for readers. To learn more about the Korean Literature Translating Library, I interviewed Kim Hye Young, the head librarian (Information Management Department).

                                                              photo credits to KLTL

Q. What kind of people usually visits the Korean Literature Translating Library?

A. The people that usually visit the Korean Literature Translating Library (KLTL) are translators and students studying Korean literature or Korean language as their 2nd language. Our library has been operating a program called "Translator Academy Program". In this program people are trained to translate literatures. Due to this type of program run, mostly people who show interest in our library are people with jobs in the translating fields or students interested in studying and reading Korean literatures in their languages. Sometimes parents also visit to borrow books for their children who may be interested in such translated literatures.

Q. When foreigners visit, what kind of books are they most interested in?

A. Our library is the only Korea Literature library in the world and we have books translated into 33 different languages. Most translated books in the library have been published by receiving support from our organization. These types of translated books are the most popular ones to foreigners. Foreigners are usually interested in the Korean literatures that are translated into their own languages. Since they can feel the Korean literatures' charms and at the same time easily understand it in their own language, they prefer the translated types of books that is only available in our library.

Q. Are the books in the library sold in Korean book stores?

A. The translated books are rare to find in Korean book stores unless you find the specialized translation book stores. The books in our library are mostly only possible to purchase through foreign book stores such as Amazon. We allow foreign countries to publish the books for reinforcing the distribution of the books.

Q. What is the percentage of Koreans and foreigners that visit?

A. The percentage of Koreans and foreigners that visit is about 50:50. Our library has been distributing the translated Korean literature books over worldwide libraries, embassy and culture centers, etc. We try to distribute to many countries as possible so that many foreigners could find Korean literatures at their libraries more easily without visiting KLTI library in Korea. Most people who visit our library have interested in Korean literature in various languages.

              
         
          By expanding the visitors of the library to foreigners, and distributing many Korean literatures to different countries, Korean literatures are reaching their hands out to the world through the KLTL. In KLTL, there are over 8000 Korean literature books in 33 different languages. The library is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. to anyone interested. Through the active translating and distribution, there are hopes that the traditional Korean writings will be more acknowledged in the world for their beauty and uniqueness.

If interested in visiting the Korean Literature Translation Library, please refer to http://library.klti.or.kr.

 

The KLTL is open for everyone interested in lending, researching or just looking.

* For researchers, translators and writers- Books are available to lend for 30 days, maximum of 7 books and available to extend the period once.

(Researchers usually mean professors, graduate students and Korean Literature Translation Institution students)

* For others-Books are available to lend for 15 days, maximum of 5 books and available to extend the period once.