Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
Anton Hur
South Korean writer (born 1981) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remove ads
Anton Hur (Korean: 허정범, or 안톤 허;[1] born April 7, 1981) is a Korean writer and translator of Korean literature into English. He has translated the works of Kyung-Sook Shin, Hwang Sok-yong, and Sang Young Park, whose Love in the Big City was longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize, and Bora Chung, whose collection of short stories Cursed Bunny was shortlisted for the same prize.[2] Hur was also the only translator that year to have been longlisted for two translations.[1] Hur was awarded a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants for his translation of Cursed Bunny.[3] Hur was awarded a PEN Translates grant to translate The Underground Village by Kang Kyeong-ae.[4]
Remove ads
Biography
Summarize
Perspective
Hur, a Korean citizen, was born in Stockholm on 7 April 1981.[5] His father worked for KOTRA, a state-funded trade and investment promotion organization of the South Korean government, and he was raised in various countries including Hong Kong, Ethiopia, and Thailand before settling in Korea. As his family did not initially support him studying literature, he studied law and psychology at Korea University and French at Korea National Open University before pursuing a master's degree in English literature at Seoul National University. He began working as a translator full-time in 2018, beginning with Kyung-Sook Shin's The Court Dancer.[1] He manages the literary translation group Smoking Tigers.[6]
In addition to translating Korean literature into English, Hur is also the translator of the forthcoming Korean edition of Ocean Vuong's Night Sky with Exit Wounds.[7] His writing has been published in outlets such as Astra Magazine, Words Without Borders, Lithub, Asymptote, and many others.[8][9][10] In 2022, he was a recipient of the 13th Hong Jin-Ki Creator Award, created in honour of the founder of the newspaper JoongAng Ilbo, which honours "Koreans who made crucial contributions to society, science and technology, as well as culture and arts".[11]
Hur's first novel, Toward Eternity, was published in 2024.[12] In 2025, Hur was on the judging panel for the International Booker Prize.[13] His translation of Seolyeon Park's Capitalists Must Starve released in October 2025.[14][15]
Hur is openly queer and has written about sexuality, the history of diverse sexuality in Korean literature beginning with Yi Gwangsu's 1909 short story Is It Love, and misery as an enduring theme in queer Korean literature.[16] He and his husband divide their time between Seoul and Songdo in Incheon.[16] Hur uses he/they pronouns.[17]
Remove ads
Selected translations
- Kim, Sung-il (2016), Blood of the Old Kings, Tor Books, ISBN 9781250895332
- Kang, Kyeong-ae (2018), The Underground Village, Honford Star, ISBN 9781999791261
- Shin, Kyung-Sook (2018), The Court Dancer, New York: Pegasus Books, ISBN 9781643132525
- Park, Sang Young (2019), Love in the Big City, Grove, ISBN 978-0-8021-5878-9
- Chung, Bora (2021), Cursed Bunny, Honford Star, ISBN 9781916277182
- Hwang, Sok-yong (2021), The Prisoner, Verso, ISBN 978-1-83976-083-9
- Baek, Sehee (2022), I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki, Bloomsbury, ISBN 9781635579383, OCLC 1289231338
- Shin, Kyung-Sook (2022), Violets, Feminist Press, ISBN 9781558612907
- Kang, Myeongseok (2023), Beyond the Story: 10-Year Record of BTS, Bighit Music / Flatiron Books, ISBN 978-1-035-03154-2
- Lee, Seong-Bok (2023), Indeterminate Inflorescence, Sublunary Editions, ISBN 978-1-955-19062-6
- Chung, Bora (2024), Your Utopia, Algonquin Books, ISBN 978-1-643-75621-9
- Park, Seolyeon (2025), Capitalists Must Starve, Tilted Axis Press, ISBN 978-1-917126-21-2
Remove ads
Works
- Hur, Anton (2024), Toward Eternity, HarperVia, ISBN 9780063344488
References
External links
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads