Victoria Young (University of Cambridge). 

Decentering Japan: Approaches to and from Okinawan literature 
Japanese literature in translation is undergoing a ‘boom,’ generating significant interest among Anglophone readers and garnering significant critical acclaim. But if translation offers a window into another world, what kind of ‘Japan’ does the current wave make accessible, and what does it obscure from view? In this lecture, Young disentangles these questions through the lens of Okinawan fiction. Examples of multilingual writing from Okinawa suggest alternative ways for thinking about national literature, world literature, and the roles that translation might perform in defining those categories. The textual encounters described within Okinawan narratives also carry the potential to decentre the prevailing images of contemporary Japanese literature in global circulation and invoke connections to alternative geographical and historical contexts. 

Bio

Victoria Young is the Kawashima Associate Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture at the University of Cambridge. Her research is motivated by questions of translation and decolonisation in Japanese and Okinawan literature, and the relationship between history and literature. Her first book, Translation and the Borders of Contemporary Japanese Literature: Inciting Difference, was published by Routledge (London) in 2024. She is currently working on a second that considers the place of 'Vietnam' in modern Japanese literature. 

Ester Torres-Simón, GREGAL research group, Autonomous University of Barcelona).

Korean literary panorama, from webtoon to Nobel Prize 
Early Korean fiction arrived in Spain as early as 1983. However, the first Korean bestseller dates to 2012. It wasn’t until very recently, right at the turn of the 2020s that Korean literature started to become trendy in Spain. After the Nobel prize in Literature to Han Kang in 2024, the trend skyrocketed. In parallel, manhwa had a small appearance between 2006 and 2010 but lied low until a revival in the 2020s. Silently, Korean poetry and Korean children picture books have their own market niches. 

This session will do an overview of the arrival o Korean literary products in Spain, considering the general literary panorama and aiming at critical reflection on the circulation, translation, and reception of cultural products across linguistic and national boundaries. Specifically it will consider which elements are prioritized in the processes of selection and translation—such as marketability, genre conventions, cultural specificity, or global appeal—and how these decisions shape perceptions of Korean literature.

Bio

Ester Torres-Simón holds a PhD in Translation and Intercultural Study with a thesis on Post-bellum Translation of Korean Literature in the US. Currently she is associate professor of Translation and Technologies at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain). She coordinates de BA in East Asian Studies, the Minor in Korean Studies and the faculty mobility program with Korea.  She has worked as visiting professor of translation in the Department of English Studies at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (2018-2021), English language and linguistics associate professor at the European University of the Atlantic (2016-7), adjunct professor at the Open University of Catalonia (2014-2020), Spanish Language Lecturer at Yonsei University (2005-06) and Visiting Professor at Jeonbuk National University (2002-04). Her current research focuses on the dissemination of translated Korean literature from the perspective of the sociology of translation.  

Funded by:

• Eurasia Foundation (from Asia)

In partnership with:

• Vicerectorat d’Internacionalització i Multilingüisme de la Universitat de València
• Departament de Teoria dels Llenguatges i Ciències de la Comunicació
• Institut Universitari de la Creativitat i Innovacions Educatives (IUCIE)
• Unitat d’Investigació Japón -Universitat de València (UIJ-UV)