Korean authors praised overseas, win international literary awards
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Novelist Sohn Won-pyung won the 2020 Japanese Booksellers' Awards in the category of translated fiction novel for her coming-of-age story "Almond," becoming the first non-Japanese Asian writer to win the award.The news came amid several Korean novelists and poets being praised overseas for their works. Established in 2004, the Japanese awards name the best fiction and non-fiction novels published in the country the previous year and vote on the nominated works to select the winners in four categories. It is one of the most prestigious literary awards in Japan. Sohn said she was thrilled and at the same time surprised at the news that her novel won the prestigious Japanese book award."I started writing this book to answer my personal question," she said in an acceptance letter sent to the organizers. "I've never thought my book would be loved by readers from around the world, not to mention winning the award."
She said she hoped her readers found her work interesting. "I also hope my book can inspire readers to think about and take interest in what's happening in their lives. If they do, I think I fulfilled my job as an author," she said. The award-winning book "Almond" revolves around an emotionless boy named Yoon-jae. He becomes a friend of Gon-ee, a school bully and troublemaker, and tries to save his friend who is in life-threatening trouble.The book won the Changbi Publishers' Literary Award in 2016. It has sold 250,000 copies in Korea. In Japan, some 35,000 copies were sold."The protagonist of my novel Yoon-jae has been raised in a used bookstore run by his mother," the author said. "Although he feels no anger, fear or any other emotions as he was born like that, he smells those books and indulges in their secretive stories. I hope my protagonist can strike a chord with you booksellers in Japan." Sohn said emotions are a basic means through which people can communicate or interact with each other and they are more important than language in terms of its function to bring people together. Using emotions properly, however, remains in the realm of rationality and this is what she tries to say through the protagonist, she went on to say.
Sohn won the Japanese Booksellers' Awards about a week after children's book author Baek Hee-na won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in Sweden for "Cloud Bread." The literary award is likened to the children's equivalent of the Nobel Prize for Literature.A flurry of good news has followed since.Award-winning author Kim Young-ha's best-seller "A Murderer's Guide to Memorization" was translated into German and topped the best thriller and suspense books of April. Nineteen literary critics and literary experts from Germany, Austria and Switzerland select and vote on four best thriller/suspense books to determine the monthly winner.Poet Kim Hye-soon's "A Drink of Red Mirror" was nominated for the Best Translated Books Awards by Three Percent, a web-based magazine designed to select the best modern and contemporary international literature. The winners will be announced on May 27.