Can a Big Government Push Bring the Nobel Prize in Literature to South Korea?

This story has been in the making for quite a while.

In 2011, I first got curious about Korean writing in translation; this past fall, thanks to a generous grant from the International Center for Journalists, I was able to follow the story to Seoul and spend two weeks talking to writers, translators, publishers, scholars, and book-lovers.

I’m so happy the resulting piece found a home on The New Yorker’s site.