When South Korean author Han Kang won the Nobel Prize in Literature in October 2024, she became the first Asian female laureate in the prize’s history. This marked an incredible shift in Western publishing, even though — it is important to note — it was not an isolated peak. In any Western bookstore, it is not hard to find East Asian translated fiction, particularly by female writers. For Li Kangqin, a literary agent and founder of New River Literacy, a factor is that, in modern Japanese literature, “writers are almost always coming from urban settings. And I think this urban landscape is both familiar for... Read more »
Is It Better to Be Misinterpreted or to Not Be Represented at All?
