Seoul to host world literary leaders

Wole Soyinka, the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature laureate from Nigeria, and Yu Jong-Ho, professor at Yonsei University, will discuss "World and Literature" at the Sejong Arts Center next week. And prominent French writer and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and Korea University Professor Kim Woo-Chang will discuss "Writing amid the world market economy."

Nineteen of the world's leading writers, including the prominent writer and anthropologist Gary Schneider, and a renowned novelist about the those suffering famine Margaret Drabble, have come together to meet with 55 Korean professors and literary figures.

The gathering will be at the "Literature Beyond Borders; Literature in the Multiculture" forum, which will be held Sept. 26-28 to discuss literature for the new age at the Sejong Arts Center's Convention Center as part of the 2000 Seoul International Literature Forum.

The forum will have nine subcategories of nature, poetry, East Asian tradition, poetry in mass cultural societies, writers in turmoil, and others in which various discussions and debates will take place to better understand the relationship between writers and societies.

gustav@donga.com