Winner of the Big Other Award in Translation Winner of MLA's 17th Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work
Formally audacious and remarkably compelling, Yi Sang's works were uniquely situated amid the literary experiments of world literature in the early twentieth century and the political upheaval of 1930s Japanese occupied Korea. While his life ended prematurely at the age of twenty-seven, Yi Sang's work endures as one of the great revolutionary legacies of modern Korean literature. Presenting the work of the influential Korean modernist master, this carefully curated selection assembles poems, essays, and stories that ricochet off convention in a visionary and daring response to personal and national trauma, reminding us that to write from the avant-garde is a form of civil disobedience.
By:
Yi Sang
Edited by:
Don Mee Choi
Translated by:
Jack Jung,
Sawako Nakayasu,
Don Mee Choi
Imprint: Wave Books
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 228mm,
Width: 177mm,
ISBN: 9781950268085
ISBN 10: 195026808X
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 22 October 2020
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Yi Sang: A Timeline (by Jack Jung) Poem No. 1 Poems No. 4 & 5 Poems translated from the Korean by Jack Jung I Bird’s Eye View Poem 1 Poem 2 Poem 3 Poem 4 Poem 5 Poem 6 Poem 7 Poem 8 Poem 9 Poem 10 Poem 11 Poem 12 Poem 13 Poem 14 Flowering Tree This Kind of Poetry 1933, 6, 1 Mirror Common Anniversary Poem 15 II * Titled * For * So * Yŏng * Decorum Paper Tombstone Paper Tombstone—The Missing Wife— Fortunetelling Brazier Mornings Family Fortunetelling Path III Street Outside Street Clear Mirror Critical Conditions ○Ban ○Pursuit ○Drowning ○Cliff ○White Painting ○Lineage ○Location ○Prostitution ○Lifetime ○Innards ○Blood Relation ○Self-Portrait I WED A TOY BRIDE IV Paradise Lost Girl Paragraphs on Blood Relations Paradise Lost Face Mirror Moon Wound Yi Sang’s cover design ofChosun and Architecture magazine Reproductions of poems in Japanese: “Architecture Infinite Hexagon: Diagnosis 0:1” and “Architecture Infinite Hexagon: 22 years” Poems translated from the Japanese by Sawako Nakayasu Introduction to the Japanese Poems of Yi Sang (by Sawako Nakayasu) from Abnormal Reversible Reaction ○Abnormal Reversible Reaction ○Fragment Scenery ○ ▽’s Games ○ Beard ○Hunger from Bird’s Eye View ○Two People—1— ○Two People—2— ○LE URINE ○Movement from Solid Angle Blueprint ○Memorandum on the Line 1 ○Memorandum on the Line 2 ○Memorandum on the Line 3 ○Memorandum on the Line 4 ○Memorandum on the Line 5 ○Memorandum on the Line 6 ○Memorandum on the Line 7 from Architecture Infinite Six-Sided Figure ○AU MAGASIN DE NOUVEAUTES ○Diagnosis 0:1 Yi Sang with writer Pak T’ae-wŏn and poet Kim So-un Essays translated from the Korean by Jack Jung A Journey into the Mountain Village Ennui After Sickbed Sad Story A Letter to My Sister Tokyo notes Stories translated from the Korean by Don Mee Choi and Joyelle McSweeney Yi Sang’s House (by Don Mee Choi) Page from “Spider&SpiderMeetPigs” with original spacing in Korean and English Spider&SpiderMeetPigs notes True Story—Lost Flower notes Afterword: Thirteen for Yi Sang, for Arachne (by Joyelle McSweeney) Yi Sang Collage (by Don Mee Choi) Acknowledgments
Yi Sang (1920-1937) was a painter, architect, poet and writer of 1930s Korea, when Korean peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule. Yi Sang wrote and published in both Korean and Japanese until his early death from tuberculosis at the age of 27, after imprisonment by Japanese police for thought crimes in Tokyo. His work shows innovative engagement with European modernism, especially that of Surrealism and Dada. He is considered one of the most experimental writers of Korean modernism.
Reviews for Yi Sang: Selected Works
Yi Sang's poetry seemed to deny the prerogatives of the mundane world while being saturated with the alienation and horror of the Occupation. --Joyelle McSweeney, Entropy Don Mee Choi's translations deftly activate a visionary poetry of great speed, volume, and vision. --judges of the The 2019 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize
