Jack Saebyok Jung
Photo by Susan Jung
Bio
Jack Jung is an assistant professor in the English Department at Davidson College, where he conducts poetry workshops and teaches courses including New Fables Of East Asian Diaspora. He is one of the translators of Yi Sang: Selected Works (Wave Books, 2020) which garnered the 2021 Modern Language Association’s Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Literary Work in Translation. Additionally, Jung serves as a mentor in Korean poetry translation for the American Literary Translation Association’s Emerging Translator Mentorship Program. Jung's academic journey includes an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was a Truman Capote fellow, and a master's degree in modern Korean poetry from Seoul National University. He studied English at Harvard as an undergrad. Jung has also translated the works of several modern and contemporary Korean poets, such as Kim Sowol, for diverse publications. He has written and published his own poetry as well.
Project Description
To support the translation from the Korean of the multigenre collection Thus Spoke n't by South Korean author Kim Hyesoon. Thus Spoke n't began as a series of blog posts that Hyesoon posted anonymously to a major South Korean publisher's website. Totaling 179 individual pieces, the writings from the blog were later collected into a single volume published in 2016, the title of which is a Korean parody of Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The pieces in this volume include poems, prose poems, opinion editorials, aphorisms, travelogues, and vignettes. They explore the lives of Korean women, daydreams, popular television programs, cinema, art galleries, and more.
In 2014, renowned Korean poet Kim Hyesoon anonymously posted on a major South Korean publisher’s blog for eight months. Under the pseudonym 않아 (pronounced ahn-ah), a Korean negation phrase, she paired her writing with artist Fi Jae Lee's drawings, creating a captivating blend of text and visuals. These 179 posts were later published as 않아는이렇게말했다 (ahn-ahneun yirutke malhatda) in 2016, a playful nod to Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. My English translation, Thus Spoke n’t, attempts to capture Kim Hyesoon’s distinctive use of language by using the contraction of “not” to translate 않아 (ahn-ah) into English.
Thus Spoke n’t is arguably Kim Hyesoon's most accessible work, comprising pieces of writing that seem like poems, prose, editorials, aphorisms, travelogues, and vignettes, but refusing to be categorized clearly into any of them. The volume delves into the lives of Korean women, popular culture, Aerok—a metaphorical representation of modern Korea—and much more.
Initially, I considered labeling these as lyric essays but soon realized they defy conventional categories. Kim Hyesoon calls them shisanmun, which literally translates as “poetry-prose,” blurring the lines between poetry and prose. In English, I term them ”proems” to signify their unique literary position. The writings of Thus Spoke n’t challenges traditional poetry and prose, reflecting Kim Hyesoon's ambition to create a new genre.
Thus Spoke n’t, with its boundary-blurring content, could easily be classified as poetry in American literary contexts. However, by refusing simple classifications, I believe that it will encourage American readers and writers to reevaluate the distinctions between poetry and prose, offering a new perspective in the evolving landscape of literature.
Translating Kim Hyesoon’s work is both a challenge and an opportunity for me. Her experimental style, rich with colloquial and slang nuances, aligns with my belief that translation should transform and enrich the target language. This project, I hope, will contribute to the continuous evolution of English expression.
The National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship will provide invaluable support for this project. It will allow me to focus exclusively on translating and refining the work and facilitate collaboration with Kim Hyesoon in Seoul. Immersing myself in Korea’s contemporary linguistic environment, difficult to replicate in the United States, will enhance the translation's authenticity and quality.
About Kim Hyesoon
Kim Hyesoon has had many works translated into English by Don Mee Choi, including the Griffin Poetry Prize-winning Autobiography of Death (New Directions, 2018). Hyesoon is a trail-blazing feminist thinker and is considered one of the most influential contemporary poets of South Korea. This new translation of Thus Spoke n’t, a volume that began as a series of anonymous blog posts by the poet, will expose English readers to her innovative hybrid genre writing, blending prose, poems, editorials, aphorisms, and vignettes. This distinctive approach not only challenges conventional poetry and prose but also provides a unique lens on contemporary South Korean culture and society and broader global perspectives.