SEO JUNG HAK - THE CHEAPEST FRANCE IN TOWN
Seo Jung Hak
The Cheapest France in Town
Translated from Korean by
MEGAN SUNGYOON
$20.00
Bilingual Edition
120 pages
October 11, 2023
ISBN 978-1-954218-14-7
Distributed by Asterism (US) and Turnaround Publisher Services (UK & EU)
BIOS
Korean poet SEO JUNG HAK (서정학) debuted in the Korean literary scene by publishing four poems including “Hideout” (“은신처”) in Winter 1995 issue of Literature and Society (문학과 사회). His first poetry collection, The King of Adventure and Aristocrats of Coconut (모험의 왕과 코코넛의 귀족들 ) was published in 1998 by Moonji Publishing Co. (문학과지성사). The Cheapest France in Town (동네에서 제일 싼 프랑스) is his second book of poems published in 2017, also by Moonji.
MEGAN SUNGYOON translates between languages and across genres. After graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a BFA thesis installation of text, video, and sound, Sungyoon moved to New York and earned an MFA in Poetry and Literary Translation at Columbia University. Sungyoon’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Copper Nickel, Asymptote, SAND Journal, The Margins, Hypertext Review, and Columbia Journal, where Sungyoon served as the translation editor.
Seo Jung Hak
The Cheapest France in Town
Translated from Korean by
MEGAN SUNGYOON
The elusive, distant, almost disembodied voice of Korean poet Seo Jung Hak’s English-language debut examines interiorities that seem familiar, yet whose ordinariness rises to the level of the uncanny.
Inspired by the commodification of arts, emotions, and ideologies, these poems—written over a span of 18 years from 1999 to 2017—parody the very act of writing amid worn-out rhetorical tropes, in a tone that is at times sinisterly witty and at others ominously blithe.
“Seo Jung Hak’s poetry feigns to visualize the present through an extremely low pulse rate. Then the farthermost outside intervenes—the illustrated world becomes distorted; the multiplicity of poetic composition intervenes. That’s when the pulse of his poetry explodes. The gravity shatters. For what? For hot love and infinite freedom. Thus his poetry deviates from the gravity at every moment to remain a documentation of one who has left.” —Kim Hyesoon
“The prose poems of Seo Jung Hak, remade by Megan Sungyoon, depict the every-day existential absurdity of mid-level managerial work under South Korea’s globalized capitalism. Every consumption, task, plan falls flat as a ‘paper box.’ (Seo’s ‘paper box’ is not unlike Kim Hyesoon’s ‘pinkbox’—they both suffer from predetermined disposability.) The poems can be read as flat fables about the fate of production, growth, freedom, desire, and language. Seo’s mocking tone is irresistible." —Don Mee Choi
“In the absurdist, ‘instant’ fables of The Cheapest France in Town, Seo Jung Hak takes on a world of disposability, documenting the dizzying experience of having a body amidst all these textures, surfaces and ingredients. Megan Sungyoon's remarkable translation brings into English the strange, nuanced intersection of numbness, repulsion, confusion, and even joy." —Johannes Göransson
“Ever surprising and engrossing, Hak’s writing transports.”—Publishers Weekly
BIOS
Korean poet SEO JUNG HAK (서정학) debuted in the Korean literary scene by publishing four poems including “Hideout” (“은신처”) in Winter 1995 issue of Literature and Society (문학과 사회). His first poetry collection, The King of Adventure and Aristocrats of Coconut (모험의 왕과 코코넛의 귀족들 ) was published in 1998 by Moonji Publishing Co. (문학과지성사). The Cheapest France in Town (동네에서 제일 싼 프랑스) is his second book of poems published in 2017, also by Moonji.
MEGAN SUNGYOON translates between languages and across genres. After graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a BFA thesis installation of text, video, and sound, Sungyoon moved to New York and earned an MFA in Poetry and Literary Translation at Columbia University. Sungyoon’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Copper Nickel, Asymptote, SAND Journal, The Margins, Hypertext Review, and Columbia Journal, where Sungyoon served as the translation editor.
PRESS
Reviewed by John Bradley for Rain Taxi
Bilingual Edition
120 pages
October 11, 2023
ISBN 978-1-954218-14-7
Distributed by Small Press Distribution (US) and Turnaround Publisher Services (UK & EU)
