One Left by Kim Soom
Translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton
Monday, December 14, 2020
2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time
Virtual Event via Zoom
This event is on the record and open to the public.
Event Description
Translators Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton will discuss One Left, their translation of the first Korean novel to focus on the Korean “comfort women” of World War II. They will focus on the question of why it has taken 75 years for such a novel to be written, on the way in which author Kim Soom has interwoven the testimony of the surviving women with a fictional narrative taking place in present-day Seoul, and on broader issues of social justice, truth and reconciliation, and trauma and healing.
Speakers
Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton are the translators of numerous volumes of modern Korean fiction, most recently the novels Mina by Kim Sagwa (Two Lines Press, 2018), The Catcher in the Loft by Ch’ŏn Un-yŏng (Codhill Press, 2019), and One Left by Kim Soom (University of Washington Press, 2020). Their translations of Korean short fiction appear in journals such as The Massachusetts Review, Granta, and Asymptote. Among their awards and fellowships are a PEN America Heim Translation grant for One Left, two U.S. National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowships, and the first residency at the Banff International Literary Translation Centre awarded to translators from any Asian language. Bruce Fulton is the inaugural occupant of the Young-Bin Min Chair in Korean Literature and Literary Translation, Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia, and the recipient of a 2018 Manhae Grand Prize in Literature.
Moderator
Immanuel Kim is Korea Foundation and Kim-Renaud Associate Professor of Korean Literature and Culture Studies in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures. Prior to working at the George Washington University, he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies at Binghamton University (SUNY). His first book, Rewriting Revolution: Women, Sexuality, and Memory in North Korean Fiction (2018), examines North Korean literature, and his second book, Laughing North Koreans (2020), looks at North Korean comedy films. He also translated a novel from North Korea called Friend (2020).
