From Wonso Pond

Acknowledgments

273 Acknowledgments So many friends and colleagues have helped me shape this translation into a book—sharing their enthusiasm, their editorial assistance, and their practical advice—that I find it difficult to think of this project as anything but a collective effort. The initial stages of this work would have been impossible without the philological expertise and generous mentorship of fellow translator Yu Youngnan. My deepest appreciation goes to her for reading early drafts of my translation in close consultation with the original Korean. I also want to acknowledge the crucial support of both Kyeong-Hee Choi, who introduced me to Kang Kyŏng-ae’s fiction during my graduate training at the University of Chicago, and Janet Poole, who first encouraged me to take on the translation of Kang’s novel. I especially want to thank fellow Korean literature scholars Choi Wŏnshik at Inchŏn University, Lee Sunok at Sookmyung Women’s University, and Lee Sangkyung at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) for the expertise and kindness they extended to me in Seoul during the early stages of this project. For their inspirational work as translators and for the value they have placed on translation as an intellectual and creative practice, I am deeply grateful to my professors of Japanese literature, Bill Sibley and Norma Field at the University of Chicago. I want to thank Jihong Pak, Chŏn Hye-sŏn, and Ch’oe Chun-ho for their assistance in clarifying parts of the original Korean novel. And to my students and colleagues in the Department of East Asian Studies at Brown University, I am deeply thankful for the welcoming and supportive environment in which I managed to complete the final stages of this manuscript during my first year of teaching. 274 Preliminary work on this translation was made possible through a Graduate Translation Fellowship from the International Communications Foundation, and later through a generous grant from the Korea LiteratureTranslationInstitute.Additionalfundingtosupportthispublication was provided by the Korea Institute at Harvard University as well as the Korea Literature Translation Institute. I would like to thank David McCain and Susan Laurence, in particular, for their support of this project while I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Korea Institute and the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies at Harvard University. The cover art of Inch’ŏn harbor by Yoshida Hatsusaburō was first shown to me by the staff of the Incheon Foundation for Arts & Culture, and a digital copy was generously provided by the Map Communications Museum in Japan. My deepest gratitude also goes to The Feminist Press for agreeing to oversee the editing and publication of From Wŏnso Pond, and for helping to bring Kang’s novel to a far wider audience than it might have had otherwise. Florence Howe first gave her support for this project after what must have seemed like unrelenting appeals from me. Her support was graciously followed by the editorial assistance of Gloria Jacobs, Theresa Noll, and Jeanann Pannasch, whom I thank for their patience in dealing with a first-time author. Finally, to Kang Kyŏng-ae, whose fortitude and creativity have helped sustain me for so long, my thanks are everlasting. ...