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Grotesque Weather and Good People

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Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Grotesque Weather and Good People is a debut English translation of contemporary free verse poetry by acclaimed South Korean poet and novelist Solah Lim. The collection delves into the intimate yet alienating textures of urban life in Seoul through a blend of humour and darkness. Lim's lyric I navigates the tension between wonder and quiet horror, weaving documentary and fictional elements to explore multiple facets of identity in a restless world.

Set against the backdrop of South Korea's spec generation and its cultural landscape, these poems evoke a shared experience that resonates globally. The work challenges traditional views of Korean literature, inviting readers to be transformed by a unique poetic vision from a world aflame with dissonance and complexity.
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Format: Paperback / softback
$3299
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This collection will engage readers interested in contemporary poetry, Korean culture, and the interplay between personal and societal identities. It is particularly suited to those seeking literary works that challenge conventional narratives and explore modern urban life from a fresh, international perspective.

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Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

A debut English translation of contemporary free verse poetry by an award-winning South Korean poet and novelist.

By turns humorous and dark, these poems explore the simultaneous intimacy and alienation of everyday life in urban Seoul. Writing in a simple vernacular, Lim Solah's lyric I struggles with the poet's call to "wonder" in a world lurking with quiet dissonance and horror. Many of these poems incorporate elements of drama and fiction, including documentary, collapsing the boundaries between the imaginary and the real as they explore the writer's relationship with multitudinous versions of her many selves.

While BTS light up the charts and Korean films gather international awards, Lim's poems paint a strange and disorienting map of the consciousness of the so-called "spec" generation that calls their country Hell Chosun. This is a voice on fire from a world on fire. Readers from Seoul to Seattle to Slovenia to Singapore will find it familiar, since that world is also the one in which we all live.

Curated by Jake Levine, the Moon Country Korean Poetry Series publishes new English translations of contemporary Korean poetry by both mid-career and up-and-coming poets who debuted after the IMF crisis. By introducing work that comes out of our shared milieu, this series not only aims to widen the field of contemporary Korean poetry available in English translation but also to challenge orientalist, neo-colonial, and national literature discourses. Our hope is that readers will inhabit these books as bodies of experience rather than view them as objects of knowledge, that they will allow themselves to be altered by them, and emerge from the page with eyes that seem to see "a world that belongs to another star."

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781939568434

Publisher: Black Ocean

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 04 August 2022

Country: United States

Imprint: Black Ocean

Illustration: Illustrations

Contributors:

  • Translated by Olan Munson
  • Translated by Oh Eunkyung

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 139.0mm

Height: 190.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 150

About the Author

Lim Solah lives in South Korea. She is the author of the novel The Best Life. the poetry collection Get Packing, and the short story collection Snow, Person and Snowperson. She is the recipient of numerous awards such as the JoongAng New Writer's Award for Poetry, Sin Dong-yup Prize for Literature, and the Moonji Literary Award as well as the Arts Council Korea's Young Art Frontier Grant in 2014.

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