Ki Hyang Lee, Taifun Kartab, and Justyna Agata Named Grand Prize Winners of the Korean Literature Translation Award

Anders Karlsson and Park Okkyung Receive Achievement Award
Seventeen Recipients Named for New Translator Prize

On December 3, 2025, the Literature Translation Institute of Korea announced that the Grand Prize winners of the 2025 Korean Literature Translation Award are translators Ki Hyang Lee (German), Taifun Kartab (Turkish), and Naibar-Miller Justyna Agata (Polish).

2025 Korean Literature Translation Award Grand Prize Winners, from left: Ki Hyang Lee (German), Taifun Kartab (Turkish), Agata Naibar-Miller Justyna (Polish) translators. Courtesy of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea

On this day, the Literature Translation Institute of Korea stated, "This year's winning translations effectively conveyed the charm of Korean literature to international readers by faithfully preserving the original style and individuality of the works."

Ki Hyang Lee, head of the German publishing house Maerchenwald, was praised for her translation of Bora Chung’s “Cursed Bunny,” which was lauded as “a translation that delicately captures the chilling atmosphere and tension.”

Taifun Kartab received the Grand Prize for his Turkish translation of Jang Kangmyung’s “Homo Dominans (Dominant Human),” which was recognized for “its high level of completion and its success in actively engaging genre readers.”

Naibar-Miller Justyna Agata was also named a Grand Prize winner for her Polish translation of Han Kang’s “I Do Not Bid Farewell.” The judging panel commented, “It is an outstanding achievement that conveys the weight of the original’s historical tragedy with precision and sincerity.”

The Achievement Award went to co-translators Anders Karlsson and Park Okkyung, who have consistently translated Korean literature into Swedish for many years. Since 2001, the two have introduced numerous works-including Han Kang’s “I Do Not Bid Farewell” and “The White Book,” as well as Lee Munyeol’s “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”-making significant contributions to the spread of Korean literature in Sweden.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.