Himalaya Poems

Ko Un

Translated from the Korean by Brother Anthony of Taizé and Lee Sang-Wha, with a Preface by Ko Un

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Winner of the America Award for Literature

In 1997, Korean poet Ko Un and a few companions spent forty days of rough traveling through Tibet, despite the fact that years before the poet had learned that an undiagnosed attack of tuberculosis in his youth had seriously damaged his lungs. Enduring terrible pain and near death, the poet survived to write, three years later, the powerful poems of this volume, which both describe and evaluate his journey.

As Ko Un writes in his Preface to Himalaya Poems, "Narrowly avoiding falls, I scrambled up and down precipices, crossed plains, on the way to the last place we could go. Now there seemed to be nowhere left for us to go, and nowhere for us to go back to." For the poet it was not "truths" he discovered in the poor and yet magical Himalayan mountains—after all, the poet queries, "Who speaks truth?"—but "what has raised me is... the road," the journey itself, where, as he describes it, he hoped to encounter "the hinterlands of history."

Ko's marvelously direct and moving poems continue to reveal just how majestic and intelligent his work is. Beautifully translated by Brother Anthony and Ko Un's wife Lee Sang-Wha, Himalaya Poems is a stunning testament to endurance and the energy of life.

Songs for Tomorrow: A Collection of Poems 1960-2002

Ko Un

Translated from the Korean by Brother Anthony of Taize, Young-moo Kim, and Gary Gach
Introduction by Ko Un
Translators' Introduction by Brother Anthony and Gary Gach

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Winner of the America Award for Literature

In this long awaited full survey of the poetic writing of Korea's leading literary spokesperson, the translators have gathered poems from 42 years, representing numerous of the author's 135 books. As they note in their introduction, "Ko Un is...like a force of nature."

Born in 1933 in southwestern Korea, he grew up in a Japanese-controlled land that was soon to experience the horrors of the Korean War. In 1952 he became a Buddhist monk, and began writing in the late 1950s. Since that time, Ko has been recognized as one of the most notable of living Korean writers and has regularly been nominated and short-listed for the Nobel Prize for Literature. In 1982 Ko Un published his Collected Poems in Korea.

Green Integer previously published a selection from his Maninbo as Ten Thousand Lives in 2005. As John Feffer wrote of that book in The Nation, "Maninbo, his masterpiece, is the people made flesh. Thanks to Ko Un, they continue to walk among us, all 10,000 of them." As the Kyoto Journal observed "It is a monumental work of twenty-five volumes containing short poetic portraits evoking, one by one, the many people Ko Un has encountered in his life, beginning with his childhood village and expanding out to figures in literature and history. Ko Un is widely acknowledged to be Korea's foremost contemporary poet; yet he is not "the literary poet" using his art to put a grid of order unto chaos (which is ultimately too simplistic and dualistic a perspective), but rather he is able to see from a bird's-eye view, all perspectives, without superimposing any judgment, pity or revulsion."

Ten Thousand Lives: Maninbo, Volumes 1-10

Ko Un

Translated from the Korean by Brother Anthony of Taizé, Young-moo Kim, and Gary Gach, with an Introduction by Robert Hass

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Buy the Ten Thousand Lives series (3 books)
SALE PRICE: U.S. $45

SEE ALSO: Volumes 21-25, Volumes 26–30

*

Winner of the America Award for Literature

Born in 1933 in a small rural village in Korea’s North Cholla Province, Ko Un grew up in a Japanese-controlled land that was soon to experience the horrors of the Korean War. He became a Buddhist monk in 1952, and began writing in the late 1950s.

Ten Thousand Lives is his major, ongoing work, which began in prison with a determination to describe every person he had ever met or heard of. It tells the stories of many figures from Korean history, as well as children and poor people, who, without his poems, would have vanished into oblivion. Green Integer also published selections from Vols. 21–25 (2021) and from Vols. 26–30 (2023) of this magnum opus.

Maninbo, as it is known in Korea, represents one of the major classics of 20th-century Korean Literature. It currently contains 4,001 poems in 30 volumes. Ko Un has been nominated several times for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Ten Thousand Lives: Maninbo, Volumes 21-25

Ko Un

Translated from the Korean by Brother Anthony of Taizé and Lee Sang-Wha

Buy a PDF file

Buy the Ten Thousand Lives series (3 books)
SALE PRICE: U.S. $45

SEE ALSO: Volumes 1–10, Volumes 26-30

*

Winner of the America Award for Literature

Born in 1933 in a small rural village in Korea’s North Cholla Province, Ko Un grew up in a Japanese-controlled land that was soon to experience the horrors of the Korean War. He became a Buddhist monk in 1952, and began writing in the late 1950s.

Ten Thousand Lives is his major, ongoing work, which began in prison with a determination to describe every person he had ever met or heard of. It tells the stories of many figures from Korean history, as well as children and poor people, who, without his poems, would have vanished into oblivion. Green Integer also published selections from Vols. 1–10 (2005) and from Vols. 26–30 (2023) of this magnum opus.

Maninbo, as it is known in Korea, represents one of the major classics of 20th-century Korean Literature. It currently contains 4,001 poems in 30 volumes. Volumes 21–25, selected for translation here, feature many poems dedicated to the victims of the 1960 April Revolution.

Brother Anthony of Taizé, born in Britain, has been living in Korea since 1980. He taught English Literature at Sogang University (Seoul) for many years. He is now an Emeritus Professor there, as well as a Chair-Professor at Dankook University. He has published some 60 volumes of English translations of Korean poetry and fiction.

Lee Sang-Wha is an Emeritus Professor at Chung-Ang University. She has published six translations into Korean of literary works, including two of works by Gary Snyder. She has collaborated with Brother Anthony on several volumes of translations of work by Ko Un.

Ten Thousand Lives: Maninbo, Volumes 26-30

Ko Un

Translated from the Korean by Brother Anthony of Taizé and Lee Sang-Wha

Buy a PDF file

Buy the Ten Thousand Lives series (3 books)
SALE PRICE: U.S. $45

SEE ALSO: Volumes 1–10, Volumes 21-25

*

Winner of the America Award for Literature

Born in 1933 in a small rural village in Korea’s North Cholla Province, Ko Un grew up in a Japanese-controlled land that was soon to experience the horrors of the Korean War. He became a Buddhist monk in 1952, and began writing in the late 1950s.

Ten Thousand Lives is his major, ongoing work, which began in prison with a determination to describe every person he had ever met or heard of. It tells the stories of many figures from Korean history, as well as children and poor people, who, without his poems, would have vanished into oblivion. Green Integer also published selections from Vols. 1–10 (2005) and from Vols. 21–25 (2021) of this magnum opus.

Maninbo, as it is known in Korea, represents one of the classics of 20th-century Korean Literature. It currently contains 4,001 poems in 30 volumes. Vols. 26–30, selected for translation here, feature poems dedicated to the victims of the 1980 Gwangju Democratic Uprising.

Brother Anthony of Taizé, born in Britain, has been living in Korea since 1980. He taught English Literature at Sogang University (Seoul) for many years. He is now an Emeritus Professor there, as well as a Chair-Professor at Dankook University. He has published some 60 volumes of English translations of Korean poetry and fiction.

Lee Sang-Wha is an Emeritus Professor at Chung-Ang University. She has published six translations into Korean of literary works, including two of works by Gary Snyder. She has collaborated with Brother Anthony on several volumes of translations of Ko Un.