Waxen Wings: The Acta Koreana Anthology of Short Stories from Korea

The short story has been the genre of choice for writers of literary fiction in modern Korea and it continues to thrive in the new millennium. Waxen Wings: The Acta Koreana Anthology of Short Fiction from Korea offers a diverse sampling from a century of modern Korean short fiction, beginning with stories from two early masters (Yi Hyosok and Ch'ae Manshik) and ending with works by four of the most imaginative contemporary writers (Kim Yongha, Ha Songnan, P'yon Hyeyong, and Kim Chunghyok). In between are the two writers who are primarily responsible for the visibility enjoyed by Korean women fiction writers today (O Chonghui and Pak Wanso), and a writer, Kim Wonil, who has made it his lifework to address the territorial and spiritual division of the Korean peninsula. The title of the anthology, from Ha Songnan's 1999 story, suggests the transcendental qualities of the finest Korean short fiction.

About the Editor
Bruce Fulton teaches Korean literature and literary translation in the Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia. He and Ju-Chan Fulton have translated numerous works of modern Korean fiction, most recently The Red Room: Stories of Trauma in Contemporary Korea (Uni-versity of Hawai‘i Press, 2009) and Lost Souls: Stories, by Hwang Sunwo˘n (Columbia University Press, 2009).

About the Translators
Cindy Chen is a graduate of the University of British Columbia and a law student at Boston University. Her translations of other stories by P’yo˘n Hyeyo˘ng appear in Acta Koreana 12, no. 1, and Azalea 3.

Michael Finch is an associate professor in the Department of Korean Studies, Keimyung University. He is the author of Min Yo˘ng-hwan: A Politi¬cal Biography (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2002)and the translator of sev¬eral books, including Min Yo˘nghwan: The Selected Writings of a Late Choso˘n Diplomat (University of California Press, 2008) and Korean Perceptions of the United States: A History of Their Origins and Formation (Jimoondang, 2006).

Janet Hong is a writer and translator living in Toronto. She won the Grand Prize in the 32nd Korea Times Modern Korean Literature Transla¬tion Awards competition for her translation of Ha So˘ngnan’s “The Woman Next Door.” She has received an International Communication Founda-tion Translation Fellowship and recently completed an M.F.A. in creative writing.

Miseli Jeon received her M.A. from the Graduate School of Simultane¬ous Translation and Interpretation, Han’guk University of Foreign Stud-ies, Seoul, and her M.L.S. (School of Library and Archival Science), M.A. (Asian Studies), and Ph.D. (Programme in Comparative Literature) from the University of British Columbia. She was awarded a Korea Foundation Fellowship for Graduate Studies and a post-doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Young-Ji Kang is a graduate of the University of British Columbia. She is currently translating fiction by Yi Hyoso˘k and Kim Namch’o˘n.

Teresa Kim is a graduate of the University of British Columbia (English Literature). For “We Teach Shame!” she was co-recipient of the Grand Prize in the 4th Undergraduate Translation Workshop at the University of British Columbia in 2006.

Kevin O’Rourke, Professor Emeritus (Kyunghee University), is an Irish priest (Columban Fathers) who has lived in Korea since 1964. He has published many translations of classical and contemporary fiction and poetry including Yi Munyol’s Our Twisted Hero (Hyperion, 2001), The Book of Korean Shijo (Harvard University Press, 2002), and The Book of Korean Poetry: Songs of Shilla and Koryo (University of Iowa Press, 2006).

Joel Stevenson graduated from Brigham Young University with a B.A. in Asian Studies in 1988. In 1999 he received an M.A. in Asian Studies from the University of British Columbia, where he translated “Consta¬ble Maeng” as part of his thesis project. He now resides with his family in Whitefish, Montana.

Dafna Zur is a doctoral candidate at the University of British Columbia, where she is completing her dissertation on the construction of the child in Korean children’s magazines from 1908 to 1950. Her translations have appeared in Modern Korean Fiction (Columbia University Press, 2005) and in journals such as Azalea.