David Krolikoski, "Lyrical Translation: The Creation of Modern Poetry in Colonial Korea" (U Hawai'i Press, 2026)

About this episode

This episode discusses the role of translation in the development of modern Korean poetry during the Japanese occupation.

Lyrical Translation: The Creation of Modern Poetry in Colonial Korea (U Hawai'i Press, 2026)is a literary history of modern Korean poetry's origins and its development through translation. As the use of Korean became increasingly restricted during the Japanese occupation, translation was not a choice but a necessity for higher education and intellectual labor. Yet it also had an expansive, creative function: Korean poets wielded it as an instrument to reimagine their literature. Around the turn of the twentieth century, intellectuals began abandoning classical Chinese as the default written language to embrace a new vernacular style in prose and verse that was closer to everyday speech. Pushing back against the perception of translation as a process of simple replication, Lyrical Translation reveals how poets used it to forge an entirely new mode of poetic composition. Dr. David Krolikoski is an assistant professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in the Department of East Asian Languages & Literatures. His research interests include modern Korean poetry, translation, poetics, postcolonial theory, and transnational literature, and his articles have appeared in Azalea…

People in this episode

Host: Leslie Hickman

Guest: David Krolikoski

Topics covered

• modern Korean poetry
• translation
• colonial Korea
• literary history
• intellectual labor

Keywords

• Korean poetry
• translation
• colonialism
• literary history
• vernacular style

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, U Hawai'i Press

Books & works: Lyrical Translation: The Creation of Modern Poetry in Colonial Korea, Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature and Culture, The Routledge Companion to Korean Literature, Hyŏndae sihak

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