S. Korea to host events with its acclaimed writers at Swedish book fair

SEOUL, March 5 (Yonhap) -- South Korea will hold various literary events featuring noted Korean authors during a Swedish book fair this autumn as part of efforts to enhance the international status of Korean literature, organizers said Tuesday.

Kim Sa-in, director of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, said during a meeting with reporters in Seoul that about 11 Korean writers, including acclaimed novelists such as Han Kang and Kim Un-su, will attend the events during the Goteborg Book Fair in the namesake Swedish city.

This year's fair will be held from Sept. 26-29. South Korea was designated as the host of honor country to mark the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties with Sweden.

The Korean authors will discuss gender and labor issues as well as the role of literature in the information technology age in the events hosted by the South Korean government agency working to promote Korean literature abroad.

During the meeting, Kim also unveiled his plan to focus on facilitating exchanges with world literature and introducing more Korean works in foreign languages during the year.

For this, he said, the agency will turn the biennial Seoul International Writers' Festival into an annual event to help enhance its status as a leading international literary festival in Seoul.

It will publish a collection of Korean literary works in partnership with Cornell University and the University of Michigan.

The collection will introduce 30 modern and contemporary Korean literary works of the 1910s to 2000s in eight different foreign languages, including Mongolian, Thai and Vietnamese.

"Our ultimate goal is to support efforts to increase the creativity of Korean literature through more exchanges with world literature and carve a place for Korean literature in world literature," Kim said.

sshim@yna.co.kr
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