These are the covers of all Korean literary works published abroad last year with support from the Literature Translation Institute (LTI) of Korea. (LTI Korea)

By Xu Aiying

The publication of Korean literature abroad is surging and the nation's status on the global publishing market is rising thanks to a slew of wins and nominations for international awards.

Global interest in Korean literary works has soared. For example, poet Kim Hyesoon this month became the country's first to win a National Book Critics Circle Award of the U.S. for her collection "Phantom Pain Wings."

Author Lee Geum-yi is shortlisted for this year's Hans Christian Andersen Award, the world's leading honor for children's literature, and writer Hwang Sok-yong's "Three Generations of Railmen" is longlisted for this year's International Booker Prize.

The Literature Translation Institute (LTI) of Korea earlier this year said it received last year 281 applications for its translation and publication grant program, more than 20 times the 13 it received in 2014, when it launched the project. Among works published with support from the LTI over the past three years, graphic novels, humanities and social studies, and essay books showed brisk annual average growth of 15%.

Translations of Korean literature published by leading publishers overseas have also shown solid sales records in establishing themselves as steady sellers.  

For example, "The Good Son" by Jeong You Jeong was put out by Penguin Random House, the largest publisher in the English-speaking world, and the German-language version of Cho Nam-joo's "Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982" in 2021 sold a cumulative 64,000 copies for its German publisher Kiepenheuer & Witsch. 

Even in  countries like Italy, Indonesia and Brazil, whose volume of Korean literature is relatively smaller than in other regions, major publishers release such works.

Based on data on the overseas sales of literary works receiving LTI Korea's support for translation and publication from 2018 to 2022, over 20,000 copies of "Cursed Bunny" by Bora Chung (Chung Bora) were sold in 2022 alone. This book was a finalist in the Translated Literature category for this year's National Book Award of the U.S. last year and shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize. 

In Japan, the domestic editions of "Almond" and "Counterattack of the Thirty" both by Sohn Won-pyung each sold more than 20,000 copies last year. The writer in 2020 won the Japanese Booksellers' Award for "Almond" and the same honor in 2022 for "Counterattack at Thirty." 

"Thanks to the influence of wins or nominations for global literature awards, overseas readers have shown stronger interest in Korean literature," LTI Korea said. "This shows that Korean literature has passed the introductory phase of 'literary Hallyu' and entered a stable growth period."

xuaiy@korea.kr