South Korea will take part as the country of focus in the 2023 Brisbane Writers Festival set to open in Australia in May, the culture ministry said Wednesday.
The Brisbane Writers Festival is a large-scale literary festival consisting of over 160 sub-events. The 61st edition of the festival will run from May 10-14.
The "country of focus" program has celebrated a particular country or region within the Indo-Pacific region since last year. It is the first time that South Korea has been named as the country of focus in an Australian literary festival.
Festival organizers have invited Chung Bora, author of "Cursed Bunny," which was shortlisted for last year's International Booker Prize. She was among the five big names included in the prereleased lineup for this year's festival, along with Gabrielle Zevin, Shehan Karunatilaka, Tim Winton and Tracey Lien.
Including Chung, a total of three Korean novelists will take part in the festival with the two others being Park Sang-young, author of "Love in the Big City," which was longlisted for the prize but missed the shortlist, and Bae Suah of "Untold Night and Day."
Kim Min-jeong, a poet, will hold a poetry reading and performance at the festival. In the children and youth-targeted program, Word Play, authors Lee Ji-hyeon and Lee Gi-hun will lead art activities and discussions with authors for the Australian readers.
In addition, Krys Lee, a Korean-American writer and translator, will have a dialogue with several writers on the theme of empathy.
"With South Korea being invited as the country of focus at the Brisbane Writers Festival, we anticipate more opportunities to promote Korean literature at various festivals," an official at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism was quoted as saying in a press release. "We'll prepare for this festival to deeply communicate with the participants not just about Korean literature but about Korean culture as a whole."
Source: Yonhap News Agency