Korean-American writer Kim Ju-hea won this year’s Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award for foreign literature in Russia for her novel “Beasts of a Little Land” on Oct. 10.
The Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award, established in 2003 by the Leo Tolstoy Estate Museum in Russia and Samsung Electronics’ Russian branch to commemorate the 175th anniversary of Tolstoy’s birth, is recognized as one of Russia’s highest literary honors. The 37-year-old laureate was honored at an award ceremony held at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, alongside Kirill Vatigin, who translated her work into Russian. She emerged victorious among 10 finalists in the foreign literature category, surpassing works by esteemed authors, including Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk.
Kim’s debut novel, Beasts of a Little Land, portrays the tumultuous lives of ordinary people in Korea during the Japanese colonial period. Published in the United States in 2021, it received acclaim as Amazon’s Book of the Month and was first released in South Korea in 2022. According to Dasan Books, judge Pavel Basinski praised “Beasts of a Little Land,” noting that “there are beasts in this story,” with the tiger symbolizing Korean independence. He compared the work to Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy’s “The Road to Calvary,” adding that it is exceptionally well-written, transparent, and mature, an astonishing piece for a young author.
With Han Kang’s recent Nobel Prize in Literature drawing attention to the strength of Korean literature, Kim’s Korean narrative has been recognized in Russia, a country known for its literary giants like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Kim was born in Incheon and moved to the U.S. with her family at the age of nine. “It is an honor [just to be nominated],” she said, expressing her gratitude before the award. “I have always felt indebted to the philosophy of Russian literature. I believe this has become an opportunity to globally acknowledge the tiger as a symbol of Korean independence,” she added, “and, more broadly, to elevate the pride of our culture and history.”
