Poet Kim Hye-soon wins NBCC Award for ‘Phantom Pain Wings’

South Korean poet Kim Hye-soon won the National Book Critics Circle Award (NBCC Award) for her poetry book Phantom Pain Wings. This is the first time South Korean literature has won the prestigious award and the first time a translated book of poems has been given the award.

The NBCC announced the English version of Kim’s poetry book, “Phantom Pain Wings,” as the 2023 NBCC Award in Poetry winner during the award ceremony held at the New School in New York on Thursday (local time). The NBCC Award is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the U.S., and it selects the best books of the year written in English in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, biography, and translated work.

“I never expected to win. It's surprising and delightful that they honored the award to an Asian woman,” said Kim through her publisher. “I'm grateful to Choi Don-mee, who has been with me for a long time with her excellent translations.” Editor Jefferey of the book’s U.S. publisher, New Directions Publishing, who attended the award ceremony on behalf of Kim, said that gender is a verb, not a noun, and expressed gratitude for selecting another woman as an award winner.

It is unprecedented that the award was given to a poetry book, which is harder to translate than nonfiction and fiction. With the latest addition to her achievements, Kim won four overseas literary awards for her book, “Autobiography of Death,” including the 2019 Griffin Poetry Prize in Canada. “As we have more translators who are both fluent in Korean and English, such as poet and translator Choi Don-mee, since the 2010s, the quality of translation has improved, bringing more literary awards for South Korean writers,” said Gwak Hyo-hwan, chair of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea.


사지원 기자 4g1@donga.com