Kim Hye-soon shortlisted for Germany’s International Prize for Literature

Poet Kim Hye-soon attends a press conference in Seoul after winning Canada’s Griffin Poetry Prize in 2019. (Moonji Publishing)

Kim Hye-soon has been shortlisted for the International Prize for Literature awarded by the House of World Cultures (HKW) in Germany for her poetry collection "Autobiography of Death," published in German translation this February.

HKW announced Wednesday the six finalists for this year’s prize: Kim, Turkish German writer Dogan Akhanli, Canadian writer Sarah Bernstein, Ukrainian writer Anna Melikova, French writer Neige Sinno and American novelist Jesmyn Ward.

The award is jointly presented to both the author and the translator. Kim's work was co-translated from Korean by Park Soo and Uljana Wolf, who have been named as finalists alongside her.

Korean edition (left) and German edition of "Autobiography of Death" (Munhaksilhum, S. Fischer Verlage)

First published in Korean in 2016, "Autobiography of Death" consists of 49 poems, inspired by the poet’s collapse at a subway station in 2015 and her reflections on collective tragedies such as the Sewol ferry disaster and the MERS outbreak.

The collection was translated into English by poet Choi Don-mee and won the prestigious Griffin Poetry Prize in Canada in 2019, making Kim the first Korean recipient of the award.

The HKW introduced the book as "a choir, each voice demanding a personal and therefore dignified death for itself. It celebrates both the fragile, enigmatic and unique inner world of each human being, and the connecting timelessness of cultural images, stories and worlds of thought."

Established in 2009, the International Prize for Literature honors an outstanding work of contemporary international literature and its first translation into German. Since 2023, poetry translations have also been eligible. The prize carries a total of 35,000 euros ($39,000) -- 20,000 euros for the author and 15,000 euros for the translator -- and will be awarded in the summer of 2025 during a literary festival hosted by HKW.

In 2017, Nobel Prize-winning author Han Kang was also a finalist for the award with the German translation of her novel "The Vegetarian."