▲Some of the major sales achievements


Recently, LTI Korea has published literature that has received the most attention abroad over the past five years.

As revealed, Korean literature showed strength in keywords such as feminism and youth growth.



According to the LTI Korea on the 21st, a sales status survey was conducted on a total of 658 types of Korean literature (37 languages) published overseas with the support of the translation agency from 2016 to 2020, and among them, 492 types (30 languages, 75) %), the best-selling Korean literature works abroad over the past five years were Cho Nam-joo's 'Kim Ji-young, Born 1982', Han River's 'The Vegetarian', Son Won-pyeong's 'Almond', Jeong Yu-jeong's 'Origin of Species', etc. There was this.



Nam-joo Cho's 'Kim Ji-young, Born 1982' has sold more than 300,000 copies in 10 languages ​​by 2020, and in particular in Japan, it has been shown to have established itself as a steady seller, recording sales of more than 200,000 copies since its publication in 2018.



Han River's 'The Vegetarian' has sold more than 160,000 copies in 13 languages, and Son Won-pyeong's 'Almond', which won the 2020 Japanese Bookstore Award for Translation Fiction, has sold more than 90,000 copies in Japan.

Jeong Yoo-jeong's 'Origin of Species', published in 9 languages, is gaining popularity with the Portuguese version (Brazil) selling more than 20,000 copies locally.



In addition, Kim Young-ha's 'Aufzeichnungen eines Serienmorders' (Cas, 2020), published in German, is a representative example. It was in its fifth print within a year and sold more than 10,000 copies. 

▲ 'Kim Ji-young, Born 1982' published in 10 languages


Korean literature gaining popularity abroad had one thing in common: the keywords of women, growth, and family were at work.



The world of women, growth and family expressed by Korean writers is gaining popularity overseas as well.



Among them, 'Kim Ji-young, Born 1982' was introduced on 'Deutsche Funk' in Germany and SRF Radio in Switzerland, and was evaluated to have evoked sympathy for women's feelings of discrimination, disconnection, and alienation, and received great sympathy from overseas readers in 2016. Han Kang's 'The Vegetarian', which was selected in the Man Booker International category, was also consistently introduced as an 'aesthetic novel about emptiness and lack' in third world countries such as 'Beja', a weekly magazine in Brazil and 'The Daily Star' in Bangladesh.



This trend shows that Korean literature is firmly established by proving its independent competitiveness in the global literature and publishing market.



Recently, it is known that 80% of overseas publishers apply for translation and publication of Korean literature out of the total number of projects supported by the Korean Translation Institute.



This shows that the demand to voluntarily publish Korean literature abroad has significantly increased, and at the same time, it is a phenomenon that can be seen as standing at the beginning of the "literary Hallyu".



In line with these changes, LTI Korea announced that it will continue to support diverse works of Korean literature from overseas regions so that it can meet global readers.



This is a 'news pick'.