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| An official poster for the Literature Translation Institute of Korea's exhibition "Translation, Platform" / Courtesy of LTI Korea |
By Park Han-sol
The Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea) will host an exhibition focusing on the history of translated Korean literature and its growing global reach in celebration of the state-run agency's 25th anniversary next month.
LTI Korea, first established in 1996 under the name Korean Literature Translation Fund and later re-launched in 2001 in its current form, has served as a bridgehead to expand worldwide readership of Korean literature over the last 25 years.
The exhibition "Translation, Platform," with its title indicating its position as a "platform" to bring together "translated" Korean literary works with overseas readers, will be held at the K Museum of Contemporary Art in Gangnam, Seoul, from May 6 to 27, while a virtual version will be available until the end of the year.
The event aims to explore the past and present of Korea's history of literary translation spanning 140 years. In one section, museum-goers will be introduced to the physical copies of "Chunhyangjeon," which became the first work to be translated into French in 1892, as well as "The Cloud Dream of the Nine" and "The Story of Hong Gil Dong."
They can also listen to the stories of professional and aspiring translators of Korean literature to understand the important role they played in bringing a new appreciation at an international level to the works, which had been largely considered "minor" due to language barriers.
Some of the translated works will be presented through different media, including a digital art piece comprising different cover images of the translated books published overseas. The marriage between modern literature ― such as Cho Nam-joo's "Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982" and Jeong You-jeong's "Seven Years of Darkness" ― and artistic platforms will be examined through temporarily installed theaters, e-books and audio books. In the LTI Library, visitors can read more than 1,500 copies of books that have been translated throughout the years with the support of LTI Korea.
The agency will also host different lectures and recitals throughout the exhibition featuring a number of translators and writers, including author Cho Hae-jin and Darcy Paquet ― a translator specializing in Korean cinema best known for creating the English subtitles for the Oscar-winning "Parasite."
