Who's Who in Korean Literature

This generally alphabetically arranged compendium of 181 modern Korean novelists and poets should be very useful, but this reviewer doesn't see how. Each entry contains biographical information, a list of works by genre, and one to three pages describing the works. Korean is used next to English for names and titles. Although some typographical and grammatical errors occur, the entries are fluently and informatively translated. This resource is not for scholars or native speakers, who could read it simply in the original. But it won't give those who don't speak Korean an understanding of the literature. Excerpts and a thematic arrangement (e.g., "Young Rebels," "Symbolists") might have helped, but with so few of the hundreds of authors listed here currently translated?according to the guide, only the works of Jung-hyo Ahn, Byung-hwa Cho, In-hoon Choi, Shin-jae Kang, Dong-ni Kim, Talchin Kim, Yong-su Oh, and Jung-joo Seo are available in English?nonspeakers will have little reason to be checking individual entries. Libraries interested in Korean literature would do better to get the works that have been translated.?Kitty Chen Dean, Nassau Coll., Garden City, N.Y. Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information.