"Weirdly wonderful and wonderfully weird."— Kirkus Reviews

In the first short-story collection of hers to be translated into and published in English, South Korean author Yun Ko-eun conjures up slightly off-kilter worlds tucked away in the corners of everyday life. Table for One is bursting with images that toe the line between realism and the fantastic, comedy and an element of the surreal, interwoven with the hopelessness and loneliness that pervades the protagonists’ decidedly mundane lives. Mixing quirky and melancholy commentary on densely packed urban life, Yun calls attention to the toll of rapid industrialization and the displacement of traditional culture, presenting a parade of misfortunes that speak to all readers in their unconventional universality.

One of South Korea’s breakout young writers, Yun Ko-eun and her English translator Lizzie Buehler discusses her career and writings.

 

Author Talks: Yun Ko-eun with Lizzie Buehler

Tuesday, April 16, 2024

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

 

 

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About the Speakers:

Yun Ko-eun is the winner of 2021 CWA Dagger for Crime Fiction in Translation and was the first Asian writer to receive the award. Her prizewinning novel The Disaster Tourist was praised as an ecothriller by English language media and received positive reviews throughout the US and UK. It was shortlisted for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Rosetta Awards, Comedy Women in Print Awards, and the Dublin Literature Award. Since her first publication in 2008, Yun has steadily built a body of work that is so unique, critics have dubbed it the “Yun Ko-eun genre.” Yun's first novel in translation The Disaster Tourist has been sold to 11 Countries, the UK, America, France, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Latvia, Poland, China, Taiwan and Japan. The TV series adaptation of The Disaster Tourist will be made in English, and Yun will be an executive producer. Yun's second novel in translation is Art on Fire, published in Korea in 2023.

 

Lizzie Buehler is the translator of The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-eun and Korean Teachers by Seo Su-jin. She holds an MFA in literary translation from the University of Iowa and has studied comparative literature at Princeton and Harvard.

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