About the Korean Literature Translation Workshop

While termed a ‘workshop’, the KLTW involves a course-length's worth of teaching and learning. Workshops usually run for about twelve weeks, throughout which participants are engaged in real, hands-on literary translation. Each workshop focuses on a single book, which is divided into sections to be translated by groups of participants. A ‘book club’ is held before the workshop starts, so that participants can discuss the themes of the book and make sure that they have a deep understanding of the text before embarking on its translation. During the workshop, participants attend regular seminars where they discuss important translation strategies and techniques, and are provided with feedback on their work. Literary translation is a specialised skill which demands, not just a mastery of Korean and English, but also strong creative writing and editing skills. As such, topics discussed in workshop seminars range from translation theories, to the syntactic differences between English and Korean, to the effective use of punctuation.