More Korean literature should be translated here: conference
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Though more Korean literary works have been translated into Vietnamese recently, it is Chinese and Japanese literature that is dominating the translation landscape, a conference has heard.
Organized by the Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities (USSH) and the Korean Literary Translation Institute yesterday, the international conference drew a great number of translators from across Asia to discuss the translation of Korean literature into Vietnamese.
Phan Thi Thu Hien, a professor of the HCMC USSH said more Korean literary works the number of Korean literary works that have been translated in Vietnam is not on par with the scale of Korean literature.
Since 2006, only 30 Korean books have been published in Vietnam. And this is out of more than 13,700 international literary works that have been translated here, Hien said.
Of these 30, Hien said the National Library of Vietnam keeps 9, against 85 translated works from Japan and 539 from China.
In addition, while most of the Korean works translated in Thailand and Mongolia are commercial ones that have been adapted into popular movies or dramas, which are the dominant products of the Hallyu (Korean) wave, Vietnamese readers prefer a wider range that includes more serious works of poetry and fiction.
Le Dang Hoan, a professor at Hanoi USSH, said as more than 10 universities in Vietnam now have their own Korean-language departments, all of the Korean literature that has been translated into Vietnamese has been translated directly from the originals rather than through the English translations as before.
The quality of these translated works is a problem as most of the translators are young and have a linguistic background, rather than literary ones, Hoan said.
Translation and literature can help strengthen the ties between cultures and ease friction through cooperation and conversation, Mei said.
According to professor Hien, around 2,400 South Korean companies are now operating in Vietnam, employing more than 400,000 Vietnamese. Every year Vietnam sends tens of thousands of workers to South Korea and there are more than 40,000 Vietnamese-Korean marriages.
