Korean is the native language for about 81 million people, mostly of Korean descent. It is the national language of both North Korea and South Korea.
Hanja, alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters used to write the Korean language. After characters were introduced to Korea to write Literary Chinese, they were adapted to write Korean as early as the Gojoseon period.
New Zealand literature is literature, both oral and written, produced by the people of New Zealand. It often deals with New Zealand themes, people or places, is written predominantly in New Zealand English, and features Māori culture and the use of the Māori language. Before the arrival and settlement of Europeans in New Zealand in the 19th century, Māori culture had a strong oral tradition. Early European settlers wrote about their experiences travelling and exploring New Zealand. The concept of a "New Zealand literature", as distinct from English literature, did not originate until the 20th century, when authors began exploring themes of landscape, isolation, and the emerging New Zealand national identity. Māori writers became more prominent in the latter half of the 20th century, and Māori language and culture have become an increasingly important part of New Zealand literature.
Yi Mun-yol is a South Korean writer. Yi's given name at birth was Yol; the character, Mun, was added after he took up a writing career. His works include novels, short stories and Korean adaptations of classic Chinese novels as well as political and social commentaries. An informal count has estimated that over 30 million copies of his books have been sold and, as of 2021, they have been translated into 21 languages. His works have garnered many literary awards and many have been adapted for film and television.
Heinz Insu Fenkl is an author, editor, translator, and folklorist. His autobiographical novels Memories of My Ghost Brother and Skull Water are widely taught at colleges and universities. He is known internationally for his collection of Korean Folktales and is also an expert on Asian American and Korean literature, including North Korean comics and literature.
Lawrence Scott FRSL is a novelist and short-story writer from Trinidad and Tobago, who divides his time between London and Port of Spain. He has also worked as a teacher of English and Drama at schools in London and in Trinidad. Scott's novels have been awarded (1998) and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and thrice nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award. His stories have been much anthologised and he won the Tom-Gallon Short-Story Award in 1986.
Reading is a popular pastime in North Korea, where literacy and books enjoy a high cultural standing, elevated by the regime's efforts to disseminate propaganda as texts. Because of this, writers are held in high prestige.
Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo is a British author and academic. Her novel Girl, Woman, Other jointly won the Booker Prize in 2019 alongside Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, making her the first Black woman to win the Booker. Evaristo is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London and President of the Royal Society of Literature, the second woman and the first black person to hold the role since it was founded in 1820.
Barbara Demick is an American journalist. She was the Beijing bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times.
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea is a 2009 nonfiction book by Los Angeles Times journalist Barbara Demick, based on interviews with North Korean refugees from the city of Chongjin who had escaped North Korea. In 2010, the book was awarded the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. It was also a nonfiction finalist for the National Book Award in 2010.
Sergei Vladimirovich Polunin is a Ukrainian ballet dancer, actor and model. He has Ukrainian, Russian, and Serbian citizenships, but has "always regarded himself as Russian".
Paul French is a British author. In addition to articles about a range of subjects, he has specialised in books about modern Chinese history and contemporary Chinese society, including the murder mystery Midnight in Peking.
Wasafiri is a quarterly British literary magazine covering international contemporary writing. Founded in 1984, the magazine derives its name from a Swahili word meaning "travellers" that is etymologically linked with the Arabic word "safari". The magazine holds that many of those who created the literatures in which it is particularly interested "...have all in some sense been cultural travellers either through migration, transportation or else, in the more metaphorical sense of seeking an imagined cultural 'home'." Funded by the Arts Council England, Wasafiri is "a journal of post-colonial literature that pays attention to the wealth of Black and diasporic writers worldwide. It is Britain's only international magazine for Black British, African, Asian and Caribbean literatures."
Kim Seong-Kon, also known as Seong-Kon Kim, is a South Korean academic, literary critic, film critic, columnist, editor and writer.
Jennifer Wong is a writer and poet from Hong Kong.
Nothing Gained is a novel written by investment banker Phillip Y. Kim. It was first published by Penguin Australia in association with Penguin China in 2013.
Maya Jaggi is a British writer, literary critic, editor and cultural journalist. In the words of the Open University, from which Jaggi received an honorary doctorate in 2012, she "has had a transformative influence in the last 25 years in extending the map of international writing today". Jaggi has been a contributor to a wide range of publications including The Guardian, Financial Times, The Independent, The Literary Review, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, New Statesman, Wasafiri, Index on Censorship, and Newsweek, and is particularly known for her profiles of writers, artists, film-makers, musicians and others. She is also a broadcaster and presenter on radio and television. Jaggi is the niece of actor and food writer Madhur Jaffrey.
Kim Sa-ryang was a Korean writer. He wrote in a variety of genres including novels, plays, reports, and reviews, in two languages, Korean and Japanese. His career as a writer first began in Japan after publishing a short story written in Japanese, and his Korean-written works were later published in Korea. For his short story "Bit soge ," written in Japanese, he became the first Korean to be nominated for the Akutagawa Prize. He went to China in 1945 to join the army fighting for Korea's liberation. After the country's independence, he mostly lived and wrote in North Korea and died in 1950 during the Korean War.
Susheila Nasta, MBE, Hon. FRSL, is a British critic, editor, academic and literary activist. She is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literatures at Queen Mary University of London, and founding editor of Wasafiri, the UK's leading magazine for international contemporary writing. She is a recipient of the Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature.
Alan Winnington was a British journalist, war correspondent, movie actor, anthropologist, and Communist activist, most notable for his coverage of the Korean War and the Chinese revolution. In 1950, Winnington authored I saw the truth in Korea, an anti-war pamphlet containing photographic evidence of the mass graves of civilians executed by the South Korean police. The publishing of this leaflet led to the British government debating whether to have Winnington tried for treason, a charge which carried the death penalty, though it was instead decided to make him stateless by refusing to renew his passport.
