My Korea: 40 Years Without a Horsehair Hat by Kevin O’Rourke

Fr Kevin O’Rourke’s book includes wonderful collection of memories, stories and poetry inspired by his long experience in Korea.

Fr Kevin O’Rourke was Professor Emeritus of English Literature at Kyunghee University. An Irish Columban priest, he lived n Korea from 1964 until his death in 2020.

He was the first foreign national to receive a PhD in Korean Literature from a Korean University. Much of his career has been spent translating works of Korean literature, both classical and contemporary, into English and he won the Korean National Literature Prize in 1989 for his translations of Korean poetry.

His published works include: Tilting the Jar, Spilling the Moon (Poems from Goryeo, Joseon and Contemporary Korea); Poems of a Wanderer (Selected Poems of So Chongju); Mirrored Minds, a Thousand Years of Korean Verse (Anthology of Classical and Modern Korean Poetry); Looking for the Cow, a comprehensive anthology of modern Korean poems; The Book of Korean Poetry (Poems of Silla and Goryo), as well as the Square, a novel by Choi In-hun and Our Twisted Hero, a novel by Yi Mun-yol.