September 19, 2022
SEOUL – Leading writers from around the world are convening at Seoul International Writers’ Festival, scheduled to kick off Friday.
A total of 35 writers — including 12 from eight foreign countries — will take part in this year’s festival held under the theme of “Beyond Narrative.”
The eight-day festival will offer reading sessions as well as conversations between writers and literary critics, exploring the boundaries of genre and language with the readers.
The festival will open with a performance by singer Ko Woo-rim from crossover vocal quartet Forestella at Seoul Community Cultural Center Seogyo in Mapo-gu, at 3 p.m. on Friday.
Poet Kim Hye-soon, the first Asian woman to win the Griffin Poetry Prize, a prestigious Canadian literary award, and Pulitzer-winning poet Forrest Gander for his book of poems “Be With” in 2019 will deliver the opening keynote speech.
Kim will recite her poems at Seoul Community Cultural Center Seogyo, Saturday while Gander will participate in a reading session on Sept. 27.
(Clockwise from top left) Naomi Kritzer, Megha Majumdar, Samantha Schweblin, Cheon Seon-ran, Kim Un-su, Kim Bo-young and Wu Mingyi (SIWF)
Among the internationally acclaimed writers and leading Korean authors joining the festival are Naomi Kritzer, a Hugo Award-winning American author of “Cat Pictures Please,” the Indian novelist Megha Majumdar, who wrote the New York Times best-seller “A Burning,” Samantha Schweblin, the Argentine author of “Fever Dream” which was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize, and Kim Bo-young, the first Korean science fiction author to be published by HarperCollins.
For the closing session, Colombian author Santiago Gamboa of “Night Prayers” and Song Byeong-sun who translated his novel into Korean, will join online for a conversation on the topic of “impossible possibilities.”
Poster for the 11th Seoul International Writers’ Festival (SIWF)
The festival is held both offline and online. In-person events will take place at Seoul Community Cultural Center Seogyo, Mapo-gu, Community House Masil, in Jung-gu, and Incheon Airport Terminal 2.
All events are free while participation requires booking in advance through SIWF’s official website. All proceedings will be live-streamed via Literature Translation Institute of Korea’s YouTube channel.
Launched in 2006, the festival is co-hosted by the Literature Translation Institute of Korea and Incheon International Airport Corp. this year.