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A Translation Is Not a Copy of the Original, But a Rewriting in Another Language
The moment a translator carries the first sentence of a Korean novel into English, several choices present themselves at once. How does one handle the distance built into honorifics, the breath of a sentence whose subject has been dropped, the texture of daily life left behind by regional speech, or a relational sensation like jeong (情), which resists being carried over in a single English word? Rendering a sentence accurately and rendering it with literary conviction overlap, but they are not quite the same thing. Translation must remain faithful to the source while also reading, in its own right, as a living sentence to its new readers — a double task.
The 57th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards, hosted by The Korea Times, exists for exactly that task. Running since 1970, the competition has spent decades discovering translators who can introduce contemporary Korean literature to English-language readers. The submission deadline for the 2026 competition is August 31. It is easy to assume that Korean literature’s overseas expansion happens only through publishing contracts and the foreign rights of already-famous authors, but a competition like this — one where a new translator discovers a text and painstakingly rewrites it in their own language — is just as much a foundation the rest of that expansion rests on.
This Year, Entrants Must Choose Between Fiction and Poetry, Not Both
The competition is divided into two categories: fiction and poetry. Entrants in the fiction category may submit an English translation of the opening chapter of a Korean short story or novel first published after 2000. Translating a longer work doesn’t automatically earn extra credit. The point isn’t length, but how accurately and persuasively the translation carries over the literary quality of the original. Even within a short passage, a character’s speech patterns, the rhythm of the narration, and the texture of the period can come through clearly enough to be judged.
The poetry category asks entrants to submit English translations of ten poems by a single poet. Poetry translation carries its own difficulties, distinct from fiction. Carrying over meaning alone isn’t enough — line breaks and white space, repeated sounds, grammatical omissions, and the pace of an image all have to be reconstructed within another language. A translator has to keep finding the balance between the compression packed into a single syllable of Korean verse and the grammatical clarity English sentences demand. Requiring ten poems from the same poet, rather than a single piece, seems designed to test not just technical skill on one poem, but whether the translator can carry a poet’s whole world across in one consistent voice.
The Source Text Must Be Published After 2000, and Anything Already Available in English Is Disqualified
The original work behind a submission must be a Korean-language piece first published or released after 2000. In addition, the submitted translation itself must not have been published in any form before the deadline, and a work that has already been published in English translation cannot be re-translated and entered again. This condition makes clear that the competition isn’t a venue for re-translating well-known classics or works that have already succeeded abroad — it exists to find the potential of contemporary Korean literature that hasn’t yet reached English-language readers.
At the stage of choosing a work, translators also need to check on rights and contract status. The Korea Times notes that entrants are not strictly required to obtain permission from the author or publisher before submitting. Still, it’s recommended to check whether another translator already holds a contract, or whether work toward an overseas publication is already underway. This is meant to keep the joy of discovering a text from colliding with another person’s translation labor. Literary translation may begin as solitary work at a desk, but it is ultimately completed within a publishing ecosystem built jointly by writers, publishers, editors, and translators.
Submissions Go by Email and PDF, and Your Name Must Be Stripped From the Translation Itself
Entrants must turn their translation into a PDF attachment and email it before the August 31 deadline. The submission address is ktimes.translation@gmail.com, and the subject line should read “The Korea Times Translation Awards.” A scanned PDF of the original Korean text must be attached along with the translation. Paper submissions are not accepted. The rule exists so that judges can compare the original and the translation side by side, and the digital submission format also allows translators living overseas to take part.
There is also an important anonymity rule. A translator’s name, phone number, mailing address, and email address must appear in the body of the submission email, but no information that could identify the translator’s name or identity may appear anywhere in the body of the translation or its file. This is because judging is meant to center on the submitted text itself, not on a translator’s career or affiliation. It’s worth double-checking, at the very end, that no personal information has been left behind in file names, document properties, or headers and footers.
A Ban on AI Use Reopens the Question of What Makes a Translation Authored
One especially clear clause in this year’s guidelines is that AI assistance is not permitted. Confirmed use of AI results in immediate disqualification. This is less a rule cautioning against technology than a standard that asks what literary translation is actually made of. A machine can suggest word-for-word correspondences, but it cannot take responsibility for the emotional distance a sentence holds with the one before it, the meaning left in a character’s silence, or the moment a poem’s tone turns over in its final line — those remain choices only a person can make.
Winners are scheduled to be announced through The Korea Times in November. Past winners may not enter the same category again, and submitting the same work to another translation competition in the same year is also not allowed. Copyright for both entries and winning translations stays with the translator, and portions of winning translations may be published in The Korea Times. August 31 may look far off, but a good translation demands multiple rounds of reading aloud and cross-checking after the first draft. Reading the original again, reading the English sentences aloud on their own, and finally checking how faithfully the two texts reflect each other — that process may be the most important preparation a translator can offer a reader.
Source: The Korea Times, announcement of the 57th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards, 2026; official guidelines of the Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards.
