The latest issue of the Asia Literary Review is launched and Ysabelle Cheung is there to fan the pages...

Timing is everything. We discovered this at the launch of the Asia Literary Review's latest issue, 'Korea', which editor-in-chief Martin Alexander ironically described as an 'explosive magazine within an explosive magazine' (the launch was held at the Asia Society, a compound formerly housing explosives). Korea, it seems, is brimming with literature old and new. Earlier this year, Korean author Shin Kyung-Sook was awarded the 2012 Man Asia Literary Prize for her sensationally popular novel Please Look After Mom. Being an interviewee in the latest Asia Literary Review, she was also present at the launch to speak to an intimate audience about her published works and the impact of Please Look After Mom.

Theodor Adorno once stated that 'to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric' but, despite this criticism, Holocaust literature has grown to become a genre in its own right and has sprung the most profoundly creative works in recent years. The same could be said about Korea; for a country so rife with civil conflict, identity issues and rapid urbanisation, the literary works are unique in their visualisation of modern Korean life. There is that innate, perhaps hereditary, sense of dedication to Korean literature and writing that is unique to the country. Shin herself said that during a dark period of her life, she blacked out all her windows so it looked like night and read more than 60 novels in three months. The Asia Literary Review features an interview with Blaine Harden, author of Escape from Camp 14, a real life account of the only known person to have escaped from a North Korean prison camp.

The Asia Literary Review has published some previously unpublished voices in English and this issue perhaps marks the beginning of a trend in 'discovering' Korean literature, although, as mentioned in the discussion panel held by Martin Alexander, featuring Shin, Korean literature has always been there, just not exposed to the West. Please Look After Mom was the first novel to be translated into English, although Shin had already been published five times in her home country. Kim Young-Ha, whose story Ice Cream makes its debut in Asia Literary Review, has long been a literary starlet at home but has only recently made headway in the American publishing market. As Martin Alexander said that night: "Shin's novel is a watershed for Korean Literature." We hope to see an explosion soon...

The Asia Literary Review issue no.23 Spring 2012, 'Korea', priced $135, is published by Print Work Limited.