READ INTERNATIONAL: CURATED READING LISTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

Korean culture is still obscure to many American readers, but the tide is changing. The sudden rise of K-pop, new Korean cinema, and the critical and commercial success of Korean literature (from Shin Kyung-sook’s Please Look After Mom and Deborah Smith’s translation of Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, toDon Mee Choi’s translations of Kim Hye Soon’s dark, surreal, and politically conscious verses) have not only turned heads, but made many readers hungry for more stories from contemporary Korea.

For anyone interested in learning more about Korean literature and culture, knowing where to start can be daunting without a guide. The list that follows is what I would recommend to the curious.

READ INTERNATIONAL: CURATED READING LISTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

"As an Iranian-American, I read Iranian novels to understand my heritage better. I also read them to understand myself as an American. The word translation is rooted in the Latin to "carry over" or to transport. Translated books are ambassadors and messengers. They are immigrants settling in a new home, adapting, changing and being changed by the world around them. They might look different or have strange customs, but they are here and want you to come over and knock at their doors. They don’t carry slogans or shout at you. A book is not a wall, and it's not just a door. It is a lonely friend who is waiting to share what it has prepared for you at its table of words.

READ INTERNATIONAL: CURATED READING LISTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

"Everybody loves Borges. No one figure has exerted greater influence over the literary tradition of Argentina than the author of masterpieces like “The Aleph” or “Funes the Memorious.” If you haven’t read him, you should. But there’s so much more to Argentine fiction than Jorge Luis Borges."

"This list below covers some very recent translations of writers that have been largely inaccessible to readers in English. There are some oft-overlooked greats (di Benedetto, Saer, Uhart) as well as some of the most exciting contemporary authors at work today (Schweblin, Oloixarac, Ronsino, Almada), and even a few that still await translation."

READ INTERNATIONAL: CURATED READING LISTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

"At the end of this year of isolationist fear-mongering, threats of deportation, and the smearing and othering of large swaths of the U.S. population, it has never felt more important to celebrate and share the stories of immigrants in America."

"Although these stories mainly concentrate on the cultural negotiation and identity reformulation that go into attempting to join the American experiment, they also introduce readers to characters from an array of different geographic regions and cultures before they converge on a shared destination."