Quoted by BTS’ RM, poet Lee Seong-bok’s work now translated into English by Anton Hur
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BTS leader RM is a fan of Lee Seong-bok’s poetry.
PHOTO: RKIVE/INSTAGRAM
- Lee Seong-bok’s poetry collection That Summer’s End, praised by BTS’ RM, has been translated into English and published by Knopf, reaching new global readers.
- The collection features 106 poems exploring themes of love, despair and healing, blending Seon Buddhism and French Symbolism in a meditative style.
- Translator Anton Hur and Lee will tour the US in October, with events at Wellesley College, Boston Book Festival and Fordham University to celebrate the release.
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That summer I stood in the centers of storms
That summer my despair burst out into crimson
but still I weathered the wind and rain
These lines come from That Summer’s End, the title poem of Lee Seong-bok’s celebrated poetry collection.
When South Korean boy band BTS’ RM shared a photo of the book on social media in September 2022, the 1990 poetry collection found a new generation of readers at home and abroad.
Nearly four years later, the work that captured the artiste’s attention is finally available in English.
That Summer’s End hit bookshelves on Aug 18. It was published by Knopf, an imprint of Penguin Random House, which acquired world English rights to the collection.
Born in 1952, Lee is one of South Korea’s most acclaimed poets, whose work has earned many of the country’s highest literary honours.
This is his third poetry collection, bringing together 106 poems that explore love, longing, waiting and despair through restrained, meditative verse tracing the wounds of the inner self and the slow process of healing, said Korean publisher Moonji Publishing.
South Korean poet Lee Seong-bok's book That Summer's End is being published in English.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF LEE SEONG-BOK
Knopf introduced the collection as “poems of self-reflection and exquisite beauty – an intoxicating blend of Seon Buddhism and French Symbolism”.
According to Knopf, the poems, “though acutely conscious of the self, are free of an inhibiting self-consciousness, speaking directly of youth, love, fear, family, grief, old age, impermanence, and all that’s central to life”.
The English version was completed by award-winning South Korean translator Anton Hur, who also translated Lee’s book of literary criticism Indeterminate Inflorescence. The book was published in the United States by Sublunary Editions in September 2023 and in Britain by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, in November 2024.
South Korean translator Anton Hur at the Singapore Writers Festival in 2025. He translated poet Lee Seong-bok book, That Summer’s End, into English.
PHOTO: MOONRISE STUDIO
Hur was reportedly almost finished translating Indeterminate Inflorescence when RM shared That Summer’s End on social media.
To celebrate the English publication of That Summer’s End, Lee and Hur will embark on a US book tour in October.
Their events will begin with a lecture at Wellesley College in Boston on Oct 16, followed by a conversation at the Boston Book Festival the next day. They will then appear together at Fordham University in New York on Oct 19, with additional events planned at bookstores in the city. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK