Hey,
I have a seed of an idea for a book club (or maybe just a couple of informal readings), partly inspired by this post:
Rough idea - Korean books in Japanese crossover
Thinking behind this
I’ve really enjoyed the few modern Korean books I’ve read in English.
It feels like there’s a tonne more Korean books available in Japanese translations (Korean → Japanese is probably a lot smoother than Korean → English).
I also feel like some of the themes and space that people like 村田 沙耶香 or 今村 夏子 write in is also a big trend in Korea.
E.g. The Vegetarian by Han Kang, or Familiar Things by Hwang Sok-Yong, totally fit in the same vibe as a lot of the books in the profoundly weird book club.
I’ve seen some Japanese/Korean shared books posts, but they seem to mostly have been either classic English novels (e.g. Harry Potter), or Japanese books. I would be nice to have some books where Korean readers could read in the original, and Japanese readers could read the translation.
Caveats
Korean books is quite a broad category, maybe some people who would love to read Korean sci-fi, won’t be fussed about Korean mystery, and vice versa.
Selfish caveat, atm my max reading level is probably somewhere around L31-32 in Natively, so possibly keeping it to the slightly easier side might be nice.
Let me know what you think! (Open to thoughts/suggestions too!)
- Yes, interested
- Maybe
- No
