[52nd Korea Times Translation Awards] Fiction Commendation Award winner Clare Richards

Fiction Commendation Award winner Clare Richards

Clare Richards is a Korean-English translator from the U.K., She earned her bachelor's degree in Experimental Psychology at Oxford University, and master's degree in Korean Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), before studying a year at the Yonsei Korean Language Institute on a Korea Foundation Fellowship.

After completing a two-year program at the Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea) Translation Academy in June of this year, she currently lives in London.

Richards first tried her hand at translation while working at the Korean Cultural Centre in U.K. in 2018.

"I was part of the film team staff and there were always subtitles, reviews, and so on, requiring translation. This first experience of translating was not only extremely enjoyable and rewarding, but I found myself to be potentially quite good at," Richards said. "Then I heard about LTI Korea's Translation Academy from a colleague, and that's where my journey into translating Korean literature began."

Richards translated Kim Keum-hee's "Half of His Egg Muffin" for the translation contest.

[52nd Korea Times Translation Awards] Judges' Report

2021-11-23 11:59 | People & Events

[52nd Korea Times Translation Awards] Fiction Commendation Award: Half of His Egg Muffin

2021-11-23 11:57 | People & Events

"Kim Keum-hee is one of my favourite authors. I'm always astounded by the technical skill in her writing, and this is what makes her work such a pleasure to translate. Not a single word is wasted, and I love the challenge of attempting to do this precision justice in my translation," she said.

"I like this particular story so much because it is a perfect example of how Kim Keum-hee is able to find depth and significance in the seemingly everyday, and also displays her insight into human character, as well as her humour."

Kim's meticulous attention to detail was the challenge of translating her work. After finishing the initial draft, Richards spent a lot of time shaving off extra words and just pulling every sentence together in that tight, polished way that the author does so well.

"The more I translate, the more I give myself the freedom to be creative, and the better my translations become, I think. Sticking too firmly to the grammatical construction of the Korean often has the reverse effect to what was intended. Understanding the real essence of the source text and then forming sentences to best mimic this in the English is a skill I'm always working on improving," she said.

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