Shin Kyung-sook, one of Korea’s most popular novelists and author of “Please Look After Mom,” was involved in a plagiarism scandal earlier this year. / Korea Times file
By Kwon Mee-yoo
The year 2015 has been a tough year for Korean publishers, especially for literature. There were few new works from established writers and even fewer made it onto the best seller lists.
While literature declined, self-help books became popular this year, jumping on the bandwagon of “anxiety” that prevails throughout society.
According to a recent lifestyle survey by Statistics Korea, the ratio of the reading public went down to 56.2 percent this year, which is 6.2 percentage points down from 2013. The nation’s slowing economy influenced the dent in the popularity of reading as soaring housing prices and sharp inflation resulted in a decrease in spending on books.
Despite that, some books have been popular. The winner in the sluggish market this year was “Courage to Be Disliked” by Kishimi Ichiro and Koga Fumitake. This book swept major best seller charts, both online and offline, and topped the charts for the longest time surpassing 40 weeks as of December. The previous record was held by Kim Ran-do’s self-help book “You Are Suffering Because You Are Young” published in 2011.
The book penned by Japanese psychologists focuses on individuals’ determination to improve happiness and emotional well-being. Based on the theory of Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler, the book claims that a person can bring changes to relationships and their lives by plucking up the courage to make changes and accept being disliked.
The book put psychology back in vogue. Kyobo Bookstore, the nation’s largest book retailer, said that self-help books saw a 13.5 percent rise in sales in 2015, compared to the previous year. “The increase of self-help book sales has been mainly propelled by the psychology craze. The boom reflects a growing interest in mental health as news of celebrities suffering mental illnesses such as anxiety or panic disorders was made known,” an official at Kyobo said.
However, less and less people read literature in Korea. According to Kyobo Bookstore, 20 books out of 100 on its overall bestseller list are novels, seven down from the previous year. Most of them are foreign, including steady sellers, “The Miracles of the Namiya General Store” by Keigo Higashino, “The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared” by Jonas Jonasson and “A Man Called Ove” by Fredrik Backman.
Korean literature has been dull by comparison with only a handful of books including Kim Soom’s “The Story of Roots” and Kim Jin-myung’s historical fiction “Letter Wars” making their way onto the chart.
The downfall of literature in Korea has been influenced by a series of plagiarism scandals that hit famous Korean authors.
In June, Shin Kyung-sook, one of Korea’s most famed novelists who wrote “Please Look After Mom,” was accused of plagiarism by novelist Lee Eung-jun. At first, Shin denied the allegation, but later admitted to it.
Printing of her books stopped, but major publishers who work closely with Shin dealt with the scandal in a lukewarm manner, fueling the controversy.
Another popular author Park Min-gyu also admitted in September that he plagiarized in his book “The Sammi Superstars’ Last Fan Club.”
The plagiarism scandal spread so wide such that the heads of top Korean publishing companies Changbi and Munhakdongne Publishing stepped down.
Park Ik-soon, director of the Korean Publishing Copyright Research Institute, said “These scandals caused a loss of confidence in the Korean publishing world beyond just the faith in individual authors. It is a decline in Korean literature.”