The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (Minister CHAE Hwi-young, MCST) will host the 2025 Korean Literature Festival from September 12 (Friday) to 25 (Thursday) in Seoul’s Daehangno district and at venues nationwide, in collaboration with the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, Arts Council Korea, National Museum of Korean Literature, and the Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea.

A comprehensive event connecting the Seoul International Writers’ Festival, Literature Week, a special exhibition by the National Museum of Korean Literature, the Literature Sharing Project, and other programs prepared by regional literary museums, bookstores, and libraries

Launched for the first time in 2025, the Korean Literature Festival aims to build on the heightened domestic and international interest in Korean literature following author Han Kang’s Nobel Prize win and promote such values of literature as social solidarity and emotional healing. The festival will be tied together by leading local literature events such as the 14th Seoul International Writers’ Festival and the 10th Literature Week program, as well as a special exhibition by the National Museum of Korean Literature and the Literature Sharing Project. Leading regional literature museums also plan to run various curated programs, together with bookstores and libraries, in partnership with resident authors.

The festival will open its doors on September 12 at Grand Seoul in Insadong with a conversation between two representative authors, Hyun Ki-young and Yan Lianke of Korea and China, respectively. Renowned for his sharp social critique and satire and a recipient of the Lu Xun Literature Prize and Franz Kafka Prize, Yan Lianke is often mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Hyun Ki-young is known for his poignant depictions of  painful chapters in modern Korean history, as in his short story Aunt Suni, which grapples with the Jeju April 3 Incident.

Notably, the inaugural festival will invite ten international writers from eight countries, including Victoria Mas (France), Sarah Pinsker (United States), Yan Lianke (China), and Jonas Hassen Khemiri (Sweden), who will engage with Korean authors and readers. Highlights will include in-depth dialogues between Korean and non-Korean authors where the members of each pair explore the creative world of their partners. Korean author Lee Suzy, the first Korean recipient of the Hans Christian Andersen Award, will be paired with French picture-book author Adrien Parlange; leading Swedish diaspora writer Jonas Hassen Hemiri with Korean-American author Juhea Kim, winner of the Tolstoy Literature Prize; and Korean novelist Seong Haena, whose Honmono topped the bestseller charts for five consecutive weeks, with Japanese millennial poet Yumi Fuzuki.

Reinterpreting literature through talk, performance, and live experience

On September 13, playwright Park Chun-hue (also known as Hue Park) of the six-time Tony Award-winning musical Maybe Happy Ending will join poet Kim Hyun in a conversation on “A world of art: More painful than it seems, yet as beautiful as you believe” at the Artist House in Daehangno. On September 19, poet Kim Hyesoon, recipient of the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2025 German International Literature Prize, will collaborate with fellow poets Kim Sang-hyuk and Shin Hae-wook to perform a full reading of her new poetry collection Synchronized Sea Anemone at Daehakro Arts Theater.

Other diverse reinterpretations of literature, including readings, performances, and talks, will be showcased on stage: a conversation between a director and poet to accompany a performance of the play Where life fled, you were there (translated); a theatrical and reading stage based on Baek On-yu’s novel Yuwon, and an immersive dramatic reading performance Gi Hyeong-do Play, a dramatic live reading of poet Gi Hyeong-do’s The Black Leaf in My Mouth on stage.

The full program schedule is available on the Seoul International Writers’ Festival website (www.siwf.or.kr) and Literature Week 2025 website (https://arko.or.kr/content/5445). Participants are required to register in advance for each program.