INTERVIEW/Love by accident: A South Korean translator's commitment to Taiwan literature

By Chao Yen-hsiang, CNA staff reporter

"I was a foreign wanderer when I came to Taiwan a year ago," Kim Tae-sung quipped, reflecting on a transition that was as unexpected as it was deliberate.

"I didn't expect to have so many opportunities to work with Taiwan's literature-related institutions."

Kim, a Seoul-born native who was then 66, decided to relocate to Taiwan in February 2025, leaving his family behind to immerse himself in the landscape he had spent decades translating.

Soon to turn 67 in mid-February, Kim has translated more than 20 books by Taiwanese authors into Korean, establishing himself as the preeminent conduit for Taiwanese translation in South Korea. In September 2025, he became the first non-Taiwanese Asian to receive a Grade-III Medal of Culture from the Ministry of Culture.

In an interview with CNA on Jan. 29, Kim discussed his serendipitous ties to Taiwan, his observations on the depth of its culture, and his decision to relocate to the island.

Charm of the inadvertent

Despite holding a Ph.D. in Chinese studies from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and having translated over 150 Chinese-language works, Kim admits that Chinese was not his first choice.

"The score requirement for the Department of French was higher, and I failed to reach it," he recalls. "So I enrolled in the Department of Chinese, which not many South Korean universities had back in those days."

He said it was a "miracle" that he entered the graduate program, as he had shown little interest in his major until his final semester in college and many peers with superior literary knowledge failed the prerequisite English exams. That stroke of luck brought him to Taiwan for the first time in 1983.

"At that time, the Republic of China and South Korea still maintained diplomatic ties, while Seoul had little exchange with Beijing," Kim says. "When we talked about 'China,' what we thought about was Taiwan."

During that trip, Kim met poet Lin Huan-chang (林煥彰), a selection of whose poems ended up being his first translation work by sheer "accident."

"At first it was a senior student slated to translate it, but he was involved in a traffic accident, so he sent the script to me, and I completed the translation in secret while serving my mandatory military service."

Taiwan as Taiwan

An owner of about 2,500 volumes by Taiwanese authors, Kim argues that Taiwan literature has "branched into a broad and diverse foliage" that deserves recognition independent of the broader Sinophone world. His own dissertation challenged the tendency to reduce the island's literary discourse to mere postmodernism or postcolonialism.

He draws a sharp distinction between the literary output of Taiwan and China. "Chinese writers excel in storytelling, but they often lack deep reflection and do not craft their diction," Kim observes.

"Taiwan literature possesses a delicacy of language and a profound concern for the island's history. This is why Taiwan merits an important spot when South Korea introduces Chinese-language literature."

Kim's greatest commercial success to date is Kevin Chen's (陳思宏) "Ghost Town" (鬼地方), which has seen approximately 30,000 copies printed in South Korea since 2023. He describes Chen's work as being "equipped with all the elements required for great fiction," which displays a storytelling skill better than any Chinese work.

Also, he notes that the linguistic texture of Taiwan is becoming increasingly complex.

While translating Tiunn Ka-sióng's (張嘉祥) "Late Night Patrol of the Abandoned God" (夜官巡場), he began to parse the distinct identity of Taiwanese from Hokkien. He realized the tongue came into its form today under Dutch, Japanese and Indigenous influences.

Rejecting the use of Korean dialects to represent these passages, Kim used Korean notes to indicate when a character is speaking Taiwanese, honoring the equal status of the languages. "I expect Taiwanese to become another major writing language for Taiwan in the future," he says. "It will be challenging for translators, but I 100 percent support such a change."

Regarding Han Kang becoming South Korea's first Nobel laureate for Literature in 2024, Kim said he sees no major deficiency in the aesthetic achievement of Taiwan's literary works compared to such global standards.

"If there is one thing, it is Taiwan's power as a country," he said.

A room of one's own

Kim decided to move to Taiwan in response to South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's short-lived declaration of martial law on Dec. 3, 2024, an event that left him "ashamed" of his homeland's democratic regression.

"South Korea wrested its democracy at the cost of lives from my generation's intellectuals. To see such an illegitimate coup was something I could not accept."

His current residence in New Taipei's Luzhou District is a modest, windowless suite where his desk sits just five steps from the restroom. Yet, Kim calls it a "paradise."

"I grew up with five brothers, so my dream as a child was to have a room of my own."

Kim's collection contains 8,000 books including 2,500 Taiwanese literary works -- which he said exceeds the holdings of any single library in South Korea, adding that his long-term goal is to establish a two-story library in his home country to make these works available to the public.

"I have to work very hard now," he laughed.

Seeing growing interest in introducing Taiwanese works to South Korea, Kim advises the rising generation of his compatriots to "read more" and "read slow" while avoiding overconfidence in their linguistic ability. "The quality of a translator depends on how much they read," he says.

With 12 Taiwanese works currently on his docket, Kim refers to his commitment to the island's voice as an ongoing mission.

"I love Taiwan literature," he says, "and I'm going to keep introducing it."

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