NAM Yun-Ji
| 2026, 27(1)
| pp.83~125
| number of Cited : 0
Today, fiction by Korean women writers is widely read around the world, drawing greater media attention to K-literature and K-feminism. However, earlier translations have largely faded from view, underscoring the need to establish the genealogy of Korean women’s literature in translation. This paper examines the reception of these works in France, with a focus on translations of short stories and novellas from twenty anthologies of Korean literature published between 1980 and 2017. To this end, the study analyzes various peritextual elements of the anthologies, as well as newspaper reports and online reader reviews. Of the 138 short and medium-length Korean works of fiction translated into French during this period, 63 (46 percent) were authored by women. This proportion changed over time: until 2010, women writers accounted for only 30 percent of the translated works, whereas after 2010 their share rose to 63 percent. Such translations occupied a marginal position in three respects. First, Korea itself remained peripheral in the French literary landscape. Second, women writers lacked symbolic capital in the Korean literary field. Third, French publishers showed a clear preference for full-length novels, then for single-author collections of short stories and novellas, and finally, for multi-author anthologies. Nowadays, Korean female authors are no longer underrepresented in French translation, and their novels also sell well in France. Nevertheless, anthologies of their short stories and novellas would still be valuable, as they could offer French readers an accessible overview of their work.