Han Kang's Nobel Prize in Literature: A Triumph of Translation Literature, Guardian: 'The Influence of Publishing Houses', Prize distribution?
The Guardian said that Han Kang's Nobel Prize in Literature was 'a triumph of translation literature' and that it was 'evidence that the influence of small publishers is enormous'.
Commentators appearing in foreign and Korean media outlets regarding his Nobel Prize in Literature continue to be in a deformed initial state, led by translators and publishers, with little participation from literary experts and readers.
Han Kang is due to publicly explain the reason why he entrusted the translation to an unskilled Korean translator in his contract with the translator, and the reason why he did not respond to the translator’s public announcement of “recreation,” especially the contract for half of the Booker Prize money and the subsequent contracts for the distribution of other prize money, as well as the distribution of the Nobel Prize worth 1.3 billion won and the binding force of the rights relationship.
Anna Karin, a member of the Swedish Nobel Prize jury, said in her award review of Han Kang's English translation that "all works have continuity in one major theme, but they always show new styles and changes in the way they look at or express that theme."
The translation expressed the original’s “sweltering heat” as “Humidity,” making the temperature drop and the humidity high, making it different from the Korean climate.
The original “a lunch table set up perfectly” was changed to “swifty,” changing “a table set up neatly and firmly” to “quickly set up.”
The “vegetarianism” ideology, which began as an imported term and began to spread intensively among young Korean intellectuals centered around certain religious groups in Taiwan about 20 years ago, is reminiscent of Taiwan’s “family conflict” rather than the conflict with traditional Korean patriarchs. In the overall situation of the novel, the key point in the scene where “I waited for her to laugh along with me” is written as “falteringly” in the English version, changing it to “staggering helplessly” to completely exclude the “passive behavior of the sarcastic traditional leader.”
The fact that the actual work was translated into English and other languages by different translators in the ‘constantly changing poetic terminology’ that is the core of the evaluation, and that the Nobel Prize in Literature judges ‘admired’ the terminology chosen by these various translators, is an attitude that prioritizes translated works.
The fact that the Nobel judges excluded the fact that the core term ‘vegetarian’ is an imported term and that it did not directly conflict with Korean traditional culture in the process of cultural transplantation led by a specific imported religion in Korea, shows that the evaluation is the core of the ruling system that took advantage of the Western vegetarian movement that is against Western meat-eating.
The Guardian said that it was 'a reminder of the enormous influence and power of small publishers who take on the heavy lifting of introducing translated literature to a wider audience' and that 'Han's most recent work was published in the UK by Hamish Hamilton of Penguin Random House, but her first novel, 'The Vegetarian', which was published in Korea in 2007, was published in 2015 by the now-defunct independent publisher Portobello Books and won the International Booker Prize the following year.
The award made headlines as a double partnership between the translator and Deborah Smith, a former British PhD student who had only been learning Korean for three years, and Smith used her share of the £50,000 prize money to found Tilted Axis Press, which focuses exclusively on translated literature by East Asian authors, and translated two more of Han Kang’s novels.
By the time Han Kang’s translation of Human Acts as a novel and The White Book was also published by Portobello, public criticism of Smith’s translation of The Vegetarian had grown, with critic and writer Tim Parks writing about it in the New York Review of Books and Korean-American Chanse Yun writing for the LA Times.
Translator Smith continued to be criticized for the fact that the style and other changes were significantly different from the original Korean version of the novel, and wrote an article in the LA Review of Books defending his position, stating that “the most important thing is that translation is not an individual but a double collaboration (with a Korean).”
Han Kang’s Nobel Prize has brought glory to her entire body of work, and the unusual decision to award the Nobel Prize in Literature to “poetic prose (essay)” has been described as “restrained and fierce prose, a work that seems subtle in delivery but is brutal in its impact.”
Before the award, foreign criticism of Han Kang’s work was mainly led by translators and publishers. Translator Smith said, “Han Kang plays language with the almost unbearable intensity that Jacqueline du Pré applied to the cello.”
Tasha Dorkopiskis, who was deputy publisher of Portobello when “The Vegetarian” was published, said of Han Kang, “She moves seamlessly between grief, history, memory and language, leading the reader into a meditative and reflective state.”
The Guardian reported that Anton Heo, a 2005 Booker Prize judge and Han Kang’s translator, said, “The Swedish Academy could not have chosen a more perfect winner than Han Kang.”
The Guardian reported that Max Porter, a British publisher and novelist who was involved in the English translation of “The Vegetarian,” said, “Han Kang is a writer of extraordinary humanity and an essential voice, and her work is a gift to us all. I am thrilled that she has been recognized by the Nobel Committee. I am sure that new readers will discover her miraculous work and be transformed.” It was reported that day.
Paige Anya Morris, the translator of “Never Say Goodbye,” said, “Han Kang’s work has inspired a generation of Korean writers to tackle their subjects more truthfully and boldly,” and “Han Kang has bravely confronted censorship and a culture that values face time and time again, and has broken free of attempts to silence her with stronger and more unwavering works.”
Tilted Axis Press, the publisher and international PR agency that brought Han Kang to the international stage, told X immediately after the award announcement, “We also want to pay tribute to the translators Deborah Smith and Yewon Lee, who brought his work to the English-speaking world,” and “This award is a great victory for translated literature.”
On January 20 of that year, translator Smith said at the Pyeongchang Olympics International Humanities Forum, “It is completely correct in some ways to say that ‘The Vegetarian’ that I translated is a completely different work from the original Korean work,” and “Since a literal translation cannot exist, there can be no such thing as an uncreative translation,” and stated that it was a ‘recreation.’
Cho Jae-ryong, a professor of French literature at Korea University, said about Smith's "theory of creative translation," "Smith's translation often made mistakes because it did not properly understand the Korean language's characteristic of subject omission, or changed the characteristics of the original characters and text.
A translator can edit, but he must not translate incorrectly," and "the English version is almost like rewriting the work," and told the "Reading Newspaper" that "the Man Booker Prize is not the victory of the Korean original 'The Vegetarian,' but of the English version 'Vegetarian.'"
Professor Jeong Gwa-ri of Yonsei University (Department of Korean Language and Literature) said about the translator’s announcement of the English version as a “second creation,” “You must have basic knowledge of the Korean language to be qualified to discuss creation, and it is irresponsible for a translator to say that ‘there is no perfect translation’,” and “It is barbarism to give a prize to a British translator and editor who arbitrarily changes the original Korean text.”
Author Han Kang responded to the view that the original Korean and English versions are “completely different books” in an interview on January 29, 2019, saying, “Assuming that Korean is a language that is rich in nuance and context compared to English, I think the English version of <The Vegetarian> is the translator’s attempt and result of capturing those nuances and trying to translate them in his own way.”
He continued, “It is true that there were some obvious mistakes, but I do not think that those mistakes have become a critical obstacle to conveying this novel or have made this book fundamentally different and separate.”
She stated in “Consent to Publish the English Version” in “Same Novel.” Han Kang said, “I felt that the translator’s Korean was still awkward, but I thought it was okay because the target language, English, was good,” and “While watching the controversy over mistranslations, I regret that I should have spent more time when I first skimmed through <The Vegetarian> or asked a specialist to do a thorough comparison,” and acknowledged the gap between the English version and the original, stating that he “preferably agreed” to the publisher’s marketing.
The Reading Newspaper reported on January 30, 2018, that “translator Deborah Smith sent corrections to about 60 sentences in the English version of ‘The Vegetarian’ that she translated to overseas publishers.”
Nobel Prize in Literature review focused on the English version of ‘The Vegetarian’ and seemed to be distant from the original Korean version in Korea.
The reason for Han Kang's Nobel Prize is 'continuity' and 'stylistic change' in literature, and the sophisticated publishing contract, which is more complex than the long-standing slave contract in the UK, is key to maintaining control over the original author, so the contract for 'The Vegetarian', which opened the way to internationalization by sharing the award with the translator for 'continuity of Korean literature', became a testing ground for 'internationalization continuity'.
Translator Smith shared on SNS on the 13th the Korea Times English article with three sentences: "The Swedish Academy gave me the award not to enjoy, but to become more cool-headed," "The war is so fierce that people are carrying out corpses every day, so why should we have a party?" "Please don't enjoy watching these tragic events."
Han Kang, whose award was announced on the 10th, replaced her father's announcement on the 11th that he "will not hold a press conference."
Chad Post, director of the non-profit literary publishing house affiliated with the University of Rochester (RIT) in the United States, said, “I turned down Han Kang’s offer to publish the English version of ‘The Vegetarian’ in the past,” and “There were many books that covered the same subject matter in a more interesting way. I preferred the works of Bae Soo-ah and Ha Seong-ran. In terms of style, I thought the two authors were more refined,” revealing the reason for the rejection on the 15th.