“People with no experience of God tend to think that leaving the faith would be a liberation, a flight from guilt, rules, but what I couldn’t forget was the joy I’d known, loving Him.” John Leal, whose name is always written and spoken of in full, was detained in a North Korean gulag. Upon release – as a man transformed, he returns to his old university in the...
The world is taking notice of South Korea with the explosion of K-pop groups like BTS. While there is a slim chance you will meet Jungkook, Jimin, or J-Hope in Korea, you can book a private Seoul tour with a just as equally-handsome man. What is Oh My Oppa? Oh My Oppa is a private tour company that lets you rent a Korean oppa, or big brother, for a private tour of...
Endless Blue Sky by Lee Hyoseok | Translated by Steven D. Capener The wealth of information we’ve lost over the years – through war, suppression, occupation, and simple accident – is staggering. Coupled with this loss is our largest barrier against the freedom of information: language. So much of what we can learn about a culture hinges on its availability in our own...
Eat Korean Barbeque Like a Pro Korean Barbeque is an internationally-popular dish. But what is the best way to eat it? Here are some friendly tips you should know the next time you visit a Korean barbeque restaurant. If you’re in Korea looking to eat barbeque, look for a restaurant with air vents! A traditional Korean barbeque restaurant will have air vents over each...
Kyung-sook Shin | Translated by Anton Hur Kyung-sook Shin is a giant in the world of Korean literature, and rightly so. In fact, her own translator for this novel, the wonderful Anton Hur, mentioned in an interview (for Matthew Sciarappa’s YouTube channel) that her novel The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness is a ‘perfect microcosm of Korean society’. This kind of praise has...
August is Women in Translation Month, and given how much we humans enjoy lists, especially ones containing multiples of five, we were very excited to create our ultimate list of who we believe to be some of the ultimate women of today’s Asian literary world (at least those that have so far been translated into English). For a long time women’s voices in...
The Summer is very much upon us and it is hotter than I ever imagined it could be in Korea at the moment. As the summer turns to Autumn, here’s our next list of the best upcoming fiction by Asian and Asian-American authors. If you know of any novels I’ve missed, feel free to contact me on Twitter @booksandbao or via email. The Court Dancer | Kyung Sook...
Welcome to our Giveaway! Time for some book love and our first giveaway. One lucky reader will win the five books below. These are some of our favourite books and we’re so happy to share them. To enter just sign up to our mailing list below. We don’t send more than one email a month so no spam (we promise). Share this post and tag us @booksandbao on any...
A Different Kind of Tourism At the risk of letting my privilege show, I’m going to boldly argue that travelling the world has never been easier, for most of us at least. With cheap flights, Airbnb, multilingual signage, and easy-to-obtain visas, many of us in the western world have the opportunity to visit the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids of...
Two years ago, I was walking through Tokyo’s Shinjuku district when I was slapped across the face by a thousand rainbows. The Pride parade was in full force, singing and dancing and owning its vibe with, well, pride. To contrast this, the lead up to the Seoul Queer Festival has been marred with pre-emptive protests by conservative Christians denouncing same-sex...
