Dearest Beloveds,
I haven’t been posting much lately because your boy has been busier than a bee on Ritalin, but I’m still around and have some more stuff for you coming soon. And right now, I have one of the most interesting guys on Substack:
. I’m sure there is a lot of overlap between my subscribers and his, but in case you’re not aware of Hyun Woo, lemme tell ya.I first found Hyun Woo’s Three Hundred Tang Poems, in which he translates ancient Chinese poetry into English. And when I saw that somebody on Substack was translating ancient Chinese poetry into English, I thought it was cool as ice and hit the “subscribe” button quicker than fast.
But Hyun Woo does a lot more than translate ancient Chinese poems into Chinese. He also writes short stories and essays over at Requests of Literary Exile, which has everything from whimsical short stories about penguins talking to lonely fathers to true stories about appreciating beauty while a Russian scammer tries to blackmail you.
His stories and essays also travel the world, and I’m a sucker for writing that takes place in far flung places. Read Hyun Woo’s stuff and you’ll go to karaoke bars in Seoul and apartment buildings in Malaysia to artist residencies in Latvia and Dostoyevsky’s old digs in St. Petersburg.
In this interview (which was our second crack at it since I had some technical difficulties recording the first recording), we cover a wide range of stuff, including Korean presidents getting radicalized by Youtube, the Korean literary scene, Chinese poetry of course, and much more. Even Florida Man gets a reference here.
Give it a listen!
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