Sora Kim-Russell (; born 1976) is a

Korean American Korean Americans () are Americans of full or partial Korean ethnic descent. While the broader term Overseas Korean in America () may refer to all ethnic Koreans residing in the United States, the specific designation of Korean American impli ...

writer and translator from

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, currently residing in

Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...

. She received an MA in East Asian Studies from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

and has translated a number of prominent Korean writers, including

Hwang Sok-yong Hwang Sok-yong (born January 4, 1943) is a South Korean novelist. Biography Hwang was born in Xinjing (today Changchun), Manchukuo, during the period of Japanese rule. His family returned to Korea after liberation in 1945. He later obtai ...

, Pyun Hye-young, and Jeon Sungtae. Her translations have appeared in outlets such as ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' and ''

Harper's Magazine ''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the United States. ''Harper's Magazine'' has ...

''. Among other accolades, her translation of Hwang Sok-young's ''At Dusk'' ('')'' was longlisted for the 2019

International Booker Prize The International Booker Prize (formerly known as the Man Booker International Prize) is an international literary award hosted in the United Kingdom. The introduction of the International Prize to complement the Man Booker Prize, as the Boo ...

Biography

Kim-Russell is a

biracial The term multiracial people refers to people who are mixed with two or more races and the term multi-ethnic people refers to people who are of more than one ethnicities. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mul ...

Korean-American. She began formally studying

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean **Korean dialects **See also: North–South differences in t ...

in university and worked for a Korean studies journal in Seoul, editing translation. While working as an editor, she entered

The Korea Times ''The Korea Times'' () is a daily English-language newspaper in South Korea. It is a sister paper of the ''Hankook Ilbo'', a major Korean language, Korean-language daily. It is the oldest active daily English-language newspaper in South Korea. ...

' literature translation contest in 2005 and won for poetry, and won the

Literature Translation Institute of Korea The Literature Translation Institute of Korea (, LTI Korea, formerly known as Korean Literature Translation Fund) was founded in 1996 by the Government of South Korea with the aim of promoting Korean literature and culture overseas. LTI Korea r ...

(LTI Korea) contest for new translators in 2007. As a translator, she has taught literary translation courses at

Ewha Womans University Ewha Womans University () is a private women's research university in Seoul, South Korea. It was originally founded as Ewha Haktang on May 31, 1886, by missionary Mary F. Scranton. Currently, Ewha Womans University is one of the world's largest f ...

's Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation, LTI Korea, and the

Bread Loaf Writers' Conference The Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is an author's conference held every summer at the Bread Loaf Inn, near Bread Loaf Mountain, east of Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1926, it has been called by ''The New Yorker'' "the oldest and most ...

, and served as a mentor for the

ALTA Alta or ALTA may refer to: Acronyms * Alt-A, short for Alternative A-paper, is a type of US mortgage * American Land Title Association, a national trade association representing the land title industry * American Literary Translators Association, ...

Emerging Translator Mentorship Program. She is a member of the translation collective Smoking Tigers, whose name is derived from the stock phrase of Korean folktales '' 호랑이 담배 피우던 시절에 (Long, long ago, back when tigers used to smoke tobacco)'', for Korean-to-English translators, which includes authors and translators such as Sung Ryu, Stella Kim, Soje, and Deborah Smith. Kim-Russell has often commented on challenges in Korean translation, namely of certain

untranslatable Untranslatability is the property of text or speech for which no equivalent can be found when translated into another (given) language. A text that is considered to be untranslatable is considered a ''lacuna'', or lexical gap. The term arises wh ...

words and concepts in Korea, such as ''han'', ''dapdaphada'' (a physical sensation of suffocation caused by feeling frustrated or unable to speak or act freely), and ''eogulhada'' (to feel that something is unfair or undeserved), and a perception of 'vagueness' in Korean writing because of the relatively sparse nature of Korean compared to English as a

topic-prominent language A topic-prominent language is a language that organizes its syntax to emphasize the topic–comment structure of the sentence. The term is best known in American linguistics from Charles N. Li and Sandra Thompson, who distinguished topic-promin ...

with minimal pronouns. Her essays on topics including mixed-race Koreans, LGBTQ representation in Korean film, and North Korea have been published by a variety of publications.

Translations

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Awards and nominations

* 2016: Nominated for

PEN Translation Prize The PEN Translation Prize (formerly known as the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize through 2008) is an annual award given by PEN America (formerly PEN American Center) to outstanding translations into the English language. It has been pr ...

for ''Nowhere to Be Found'' by Bae Suah * 2016: Nominated for

Best Translated Book Award The Best Translated Book Award was an American literary award that recognized the previous year's best original translation into English, one book of poetry and one of fiction. It was inaugurated in 2008 and was conferred by Three Percent, the onl ...

for ''Nowhere to Be Found'' by Bae Suah * 2017: Winner of 2017

Shirley Jackson Award The Shirley Jackson Awards are literary awards named after Shirley Jackson in recognition of her legacy in writing. These awards for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror and dark fantasy are presented at Rea ...

for ''The Hole'' by Pyun Hye-Young * 2018: Winner of 2018 GKL Korean Literature Translation Awards for ''The Plotteres'' by Kim Un-su * 2019: Longlisted for 2019

for ''At Dusk'' by Hwang Sok-yong * 2019: Winner of 2019 LTI Korea Translation Award for ''The Plotters'' by Kim Un-su * 2020: Longlisted for 2020 PEN Translation Prize for ''At Dusk'' by Hwang Sok-yong * 2021: Longlisted for 2021

National Book Award for Translated Literature The National Book Award for Translated Literature, is one of five annual National Book Awards in the USA, recognising outstanding literary works of translation into English and administered by the National Book Foundation. This award was previousl ...

for ''On the Origin of Species and Other Species'' by Kim Bo-young, translated with Joungmin Lee Comfort * 2024: Shortlisted for 2024 International Booker Prize with Youngjae Josephine Bae for ''Mater 2-10'' by Hwang Sok-yong

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kim-Russell, Sora 21st-century American translators 1976 births Living people American writers of Korean descent Literary translators Korean–English translators Stanford University alumni 21st-century American women writers