Reading Gangnam Style (강남스타일): South Korean Fiction in Translation

South Korean rapper Psy's music video Gangnam Style went viral last August with now over 7 million hits on YouTube. It has spawned hundreds of parodies and tributes and has brought Korean pop culture galloping (literally) front and center to a Western audience.

Of course, this is old news to the legions of North American K-Pop fans who have been dancing to South Korean groups for years. News to you? Here's a selection available from the library: First Album by Girls' Generation, The First Album to Anyone by 2NE1, Mini4 by Bigbang, Wonder World by the Wonder Girls, Red: The 4th Single Album by After School, So Cool by Sistar and The Shinee World by Shinee (South Korea's One Direction).

However, if your speed is more book club than night club, here's another great, if somewhat less bouncy, import worth checking out: recent South Korean fiction in translation.

Please Look After Mom by Kyung Sook Shin. A rural woman goes missing at a busy subway station in Seoul. Her children, all successful adults, and her husband frantically search for her while each is wracked with guilt about their relationships with the missing woman. Shin is a best-selling author in South Korea – and her book is getting great reviews in North America. This was our online book club's choice in May.

Black Flower by Young-Ha Kim. Chronicles the hardships suffered by hundreds of Koreans who went to Mexico in 1905 to escape the impending invasion from Japan. Instead of finding a better life, they found a life of indentured servitude working in terrible conditions for wealthy landowners.

Tongue by Kyung Ran Jo. A cooking school teacher is devastated when her partner leaves her for an ex-model. The relationship between food and sex is explored in this psychological tale of infidelity and revenge.

The Old Garden by Hwang Sok-Yong. A political prisoner is freed after 18 years in jail to find that the love of his life has died. He discovers her letters and journals and re-traces their life together. Sok-Yong, a longtime dissident of the South Korean government, has himself been jailed as a political prisoner.

Like your reads a little more graphic? South Korean manhwa is challenging the dominance of Japanese manga. Here are some popular series available from the library.