The cover page of Kim Hye-soon’s “Phantom Pain Wings” is shown in this image provided by Moonji Publishing Co. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Mar. 22 (Yonhap) – South Korean poet Kim Hye-soon won the prestigious National Book Critics Circle Award for her work “Phantom Pain Wings” on Thursday (U.S. time).
The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC), an American nonprofit association, announced her as the winner in the poetry category of this year’s awards.
The annual NBCC Awards recognize outstanding books published in English across six categories: fiction, nonfiction, biography, autobiography, poetry and criticism.
“Phantom Pain Wings,” depicting the memory of patriarchy and war trauma, marks the 13th book by the 69-year-old poet.
The undated photo provided by the Literature Translation Institute of Korea shows poet Kim Hye-soon. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
Originally published in Korean in 2019, the poetry collection was translated by Choi Don-mee and released in English by New Directions Publishing last year.
The poet “pushes the poetic envelope into the farthest reaches of the lyric universe. In her new collection, Kim depicts the memory of war trauma and the collective grief of parting through what she calls an ‘I-do-bird-sequence,’ where ‘Bird-human is the ‘I,’” the U.S. publisher said about her book.
It was chosen as one of the best poetry books of 2023 by the New York Times.
Among the five finalists in the award’s poetry category, Kim’s book was the only translated work.
(Yonhap)
