Korean author Bae Su-ah’s novel “Cheolsu” will be published in English in the United States next April, LTI Korea announced.

“I hope that American readers will be able to discover Bae’s creative and superb collection of works. We would like to publish her works in the years to come,” said Sarah Jane Gunter, publisher at Amazon Crossing imprint, an American publishing house that mainly focuses on translations of foreign language books.

“Cheolsu” is Bae’s 1998 novel, set in 1988, about the protagonist and her friend Cheolsu, who serves in the Korean military. Her visit to his army base serves as a pivotal moment from which she shuttles between reality and hallucinations while seeking to discover the hidden truth of society. 

Bae’s short story “Highway with Green Apples,” which was translated into English and published in Amazon’s digital literary journal “Day One” last December, will also be published in a collection of short stories with other American emerging writers in October.

The collection contains 12 short stories and six poems out of 70 works that were selected for “Day One.” “Day One” selects one writer and poet each week from debut writers, English translations of stories from around the world and poetry.

Both “Cheolsu” and “Highway with Green Apples” will be translated by Sora Kim-Russell, a noted translator who has worked on best-selling books including Shin Kyung-sook’s “I’ll be Right There” and Gong Ji-young’s “Our Happy Times.”

Bae, standing out as one of the most experimental writers in Korea, was born in Seoul in 1965 and graduated from Ewha Womans University with a degree in chemistry. She started writing as a hobby while working at Gimpo International Airport as a government employee. In 1993, she made her literary debut with “A Dark Room in 1988.” Since then she has published a number of short-story collections, novels and translations. She recently attended the PEN World Voices Festival, an annual literary festival underway in New York.

By Ahn Sung-mi (sahn@heraldcorp.com)