Bruce Fulton is an American professor of Korean Literature and a noted translator of contemporary Korean fiction with an extensive list of publications. He has lived in the United States, Canada, and South Korea, and is married to fellow translator Ju-Chan Fulton.
Fulton and his wife, Ju-Chan, met at Seoul National University in 1978, while Fulton was volunteering in the Peace Corps. They married in 1979 and eventually realized that together they were "the ideal translation team," as Bruce was a native speaker of English who knew [Korean, and Ju-Chan was a native speaker of Korean who knew English.[2]
Fulton is the inaugural holder of the Young-Bin Min Chair in Korean Literature and Literary Translation in the Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia.[3] Fulton has also won several awards, including Korea's Daesan Foundation's translation prize and the 2018 Manhae Literature Grand Prize.[4]
Career
Fulton has translated a variety of works, including novels (such as Cho Se-hui’s The Dwarf) and anthologies (such as Land of Exile, The Red Room, Lost Souls: Stories by Hwang Sunwon.)[5][6] Fulton almost always works in partnership with his wife, Ju-Chan Fulton, in translating works from Korean to English.[7]
One of Fulton's more recent translation is River of Fire and Other Stories by O Chonghui which contains nine stories, written from 1968 to 1994, describing family dysfunction, the decline of tradition, and lost love from a woman's perspective.[4] Recently, he has translated The Future of Silence, which uses some stories by older writers and stories by newer writers such as Kim Sagwa, Han Yujoo, Kim Ae-ran, and Cheon Un-yeong. His most recent translation is The Human Jungle by Cho Chongnae.
As a professor, Fulton works in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, where he teaches modern Korean literature and researches modern Korean fiction and its translation.[8]
10. ^ "An Interview with Ju-Chan and Bruce Fulton, for the translation of Kim Tae-yong’s “Pig on Grass” selected for publication in the Massachusetts Review and then for winning the 4th Annual Chametzky Prize for Translation!" April 7, 2015, https://www.massreview.org/node/437