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By Korea.net Honorary Reporter Diya Mitra
It is Nov. 15, 2016, and I'm sitting inside a busy coffee shop just near Dongguk University Station in Seoul. It has just gone 10 minutes past four in the afternoon and I'm chatting with Barry Welsh. I say chatting rather than interviewing as it feels less like me firing questions at him, but a friendly conversation between two people who have met for the first time after connecting on Facebook over a year ago.
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| Barry Welsh teaches at Dongguk University and loves Korean literature. (Korea.net DB) |
Barry Welsh is an assistant professor at Dongguk University and founder of the Seoul Book and Culture Club. We're currently talking about coffee after sitting down to drink it. I'm meeting with Welsh primarily to talk about his foray into Korean translated literature and the origins of the club which that he founded in 2012. He tells me during the conversation that he is not a scholar of Korean literature nor does he consider himself a fanatic or one that is obsessed. At this point I feel his eyes fixing on me in wonder and I feel a confession is in order. I question internally if I qualify as an obsessed fanatic. I haven't read every Korean-to-English translated book in print, but I know reading translated literature helps bring me closer to a country and language in which I hope to lose myself. I explain the latter to Welsh and he nods, almost relieved to know he's not being interviewed by a Korean literature fanatic.
The club unofficially began as a way for Welsh to meet people. Seven years ago when he moved to Korea from the Isle of Man to teach English, he was uninterested in the drinking and partying scene in which many expatriate teachers immerse themselves. He wanted to form a deeper connection with people and with books. Having been in book clubs most of his scholarly life, he thought it would be a good idea to start one and use the medium of Facebook to reach out to those also interested in the subject. At the first session, there were six people. Back then, people were free to choose what they wanted to read, as they met in a coffee shop in Itaewon once a month. Books discussed included "Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins and "Teacher Man" by Frank McCourt.
At the time Welsh vaguely knew of the writer Krys Lee, author of the short story collec-tion "Drifting House." Lee is also an assistant professor of creative writing at Yonsei University. Welsh got in touch with her and asked her to come along to talk about her book. Advertising through Facebook, the response received was more, with some 20 people turning up at the next meeting.
Seeing the success of this gathering, Welsh wanted to do something similar and explored establishing a relationship through someone he knew, who, in turn, knew the human rights activist Shin Dong-Hyuk. Shin is the subject of the biography "Escape From Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssesy From North Korea to Freedom in the West." Advertising this event via Facebook received an incredible response, and Welsh knew he needed a proper venue as opposed to a coffee shop. He booked the biggest room he could find, that could accommodate 50 people, but even then he was turning people away at the door. He decided to pursue these events where he could invite writers to talk about their works to a captive audience. He set about researching expat writers and Korean authors that had been translated into English. He has since had Shin Kyung-Suk, Han Kang, Kim Young-Ha, Gong Ji-Young, Hwang Sun-mi and more recently Bae Suah, to name but a few. He has also recently had British novelist Helen Oyeyemi attend, too.
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| Many people, both Korean and non-Korean, gather every month to discuss Korean literature. Famous Korean writers, including Bae Suah and Cho Chongnae, have been invited to the meeting. (Seoul Book and Culture Club) |
We start talking a little about the logistical challenges of ensuring good interpreters at these events, as both non-Koreans and Koreans make up the audience. It's vital that proper Korean and English are spoken throughout. We also discuss how the events are now made accessible through Facebook’s "Live" feature for those who live abroad. I'm chiefly thinking of myself in this capacity, as well as those dotted around the world.
I ask Welsh about his personal discovery of Korean literature translated into English, and find that we both share the book "Three Generations" by Yom Sang-Seop and translated by Yu Young nan as our favorite Korean novel in English. However, I soon find that he didn't actually make it all the way through the book, as the text was a little laboured, he said. "I Have the Right to Destroy Myself’ by Kim Young-ha and translated by Chi-Young Kim was his first fully-read novel. It was the title and the cover with a woman falling from the sky that attracted him to it. The book reflected the personal experiences of Seoul that he was having at the time. Coming from a small Scottish town and transitioning to a large modern city, he was able to relate to the description of the fast-paced urban landscape of Seoul. Being his first Korean novel to have read in English, it was only natural that author Kim Young-Ha was the first Korean author that Welsh had at the club, Krys Lee aside.
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| Add caption 'I Have the Right to Destroy Myself' is written by Kim Young-Ha and is translated by Chi-Young Kim. The English version has an impressive cover. (Diya Mitra) |
We begin to explore other Korean authors that Welsh likes and enjoys reading. He directs me to a modernist writer Pyun Hye-young. Her book "Evening Proposal," translated by Park Youngsuk and Gloria Cosgrove Smith, is a collection of short stories that have been recently published by Dalkey Archive. Welsh particularly likes one of her stories, "Mallow Gardens," that was translated by Cindy Chen. It's short story set in a post-apocalyptic future where there are people living in apartment blocks who become corrupted and their bodies turn into frogs. Just nasty stories apparently. I'm intrigued and am already highlighting her as an author I must read as soon as possible. Welsh also speaks of Park Min-Gyu because of the oddities of his stories, and of Cho Chongnae’s "How in Heaven’s Name" that was translated by the husband-and-wife team Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton.
I ask him if there is anyone he's rather keen to get to come along to the club. He talks of a graphic novel translated into English titled "Uncomfortably Happily" by Yeon-Sik Hong. Welsh said it would be the first graphic novel for his club if he could get the author to come along.
I know Welsh is not a translator, but he knows Korean enough to get by. I ask him about the challenges of translating works from Korean into English and staying true to the thinking and sentiment, including cultural differences. Being an avid reader of all kinds of books, he answers that he has just read "Mr. Fox" by Helen Oyeyemi. Her book is packed full of meaning, as it references fairy tales and folk tales that English readers would immediately understand. He says that some of its essence would be lost if translated into another language. Welsh believes the same happens when translating Korean into English. I'm reminded of Kim Young-Ha’s response to being translated when he was interviewed at the London Book Fair in 2014 by Krys Lee. Kim likens seeing a translated book to an ex-girlfriend holding a child and you're not entirely sure whether it's yours or not. Kim believes that once a work is translated, it enters the culture of the language into which it was translated and, as the original author, it no longer belongs to him.
Not that I'm any authority on translation, but there do exist words and meanings in one language that can be challenging to convey with the same sentiment in another.
It is, however, thanks to the incredible cadre of talented translators out there that I'm even sitting where I am in this coffee shop talking to Welsh about literature. They strive passionately to bring us English speakers closer to the world of Korean literature. I'm unable to thank them enough. If it wasn’t for them, Welsh and I would just be talking about coffee and shopping. Not that our conversation would have been boring, but perhaps it would have been one that I could not have used for Korea.net.
wisdom117@korea.kr
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