Korean literature is a part of Hallyu, the Korean Wave, spreading all over the world and becoming a new source of entertainment for people across the borders. Although surging to popularity much later than K-Pop and K-Drama in Indonesia, it didn’t stop Korean literature to rapidly gain loyal and avid readers in my country. Social media, with its constant and measured engagement and promotion, is a powerful tool nowadays for K-Literature to make ways into the hearts of new fans, regardless of their gender, age, and social background.  

Who are the agents to push the introduction of Korean literature to Indonesian readers? The writer would say they are the publishers and the literature communities. 

The first Korean book translated to Indonesian was a collection of short stories titled ‘Sea and Butterfly’ (Koh Young Hun, 2007), brought to Indonesian readers by Gramedia Pustaka Utama, one of the major publishers in Indonesia. Over the years GPU continues bringing popular fiction and nonfiction works from Korea to Indonesia, as public becomes more interested in everything Korean. Universities commenced Korean language majors, a need of Korean-Indonesian/Indonesian-Korean translator and interpreter emerged, and people started to associate Korea with more than electronic brands (Samsung, LG), K-Pop groups, and K-Drama continuously broadcasted throughout the day in local television channels.

In 2011, Haru Publisher with Lia Indra Andriana as the CEO started delving into translated-book business by bringing the ‘So I Married an Anti-fan’ novel from Korea to Indonesian readers. It was one of the many more Korean books, fictions and nonfictions, translated and published by Haru Publisher. Within twelve years Haru Publisher has stayed at the top of mind of readers who are loyal to the works of Asian writers coming from, to name a few, Japan, Korea, Hongkong, China, and Taiwan.

In a quick interview a while ago, Lia Indra Andriana stated that she unintentionally founded Haru Publisher in 2011 while working on self-publishing her novels. At that time, she had had interest in Korea and often used the depiction of the country as story backgrounds in her works. Initially being assisted by a circle of friends as translators and editors, until now she has been leading Haru Publisher to become a niched publisher in presenting literature works from Asia to Indonesian readers, with Korean literature works sold best among all translated books. 

“I got into publishing translated-book business because I have passion in books and writings. Why Korea? Because I like the country, and everything related to it. At that time, I asked my older sibling who lived in Japan to join me on a search for good book to translate from Japanese to Indonesian as well. I can proudly say that we started this publishing business because we love everything about books and the countries from which the writers come. We try to predict the market and the trend, but as literary world is ever-changing, so is the sales reality compared to the sales forecast. Some books sell well, other books don’t sell at all, even though we have committed ourselves to the production and promotion costs. This burning passion and interest we have in Asia’s literature works has been keeping us going, even when business-wise the translated books don’t seem to make evident profit. We work hard and we love the hard work we do.” (Lia Indra Andriana)

Lia Indra Andriana also shared Haru Publisher’s ways to pique people’s interest in Korean literature. Since the very beginning Haru Publisher has been using social media to announce their presence and competitive edge in Indonesian publishing industry. Through their social media they broadcast information about their latest publications, events for readers, writers’ activities, and so on. They reach for their readers by establishing joint project with communities having the same passion and interest in everything Korean, such as K-Pop fandoms (Super Junior, Big Bang, etc.) and literature communities, and by holding literary festival. 

Since 2020 Haru Publisher has become the initiator and main promotor of ‘Festival Buku Asia’ (Asia Book Festival), a platform for writers from across Asia to share their writing process and to introduce themselves and their works to readers. ‘Festival Buku Asia’ also brings forward the prominent people in the industry to the public, mainly editors, translators, and other professionals.

In ‘Festival Buku Asia’ 2022, Haru Publisher brought a conversation with Bora Chung, the emerging writer famous for her short story collection ‘The Cursed Bunny’, which was short-listed in International Booker Prize 2022. Bora Chung’s short story collection of anger and horror is a proof of a genre which is not (yet) widely accepted in Indonesia, not as much as drama, romantic-comedy, or slice-of-life are, but indeed has potentials that make people come to the festival because they were curious about her writing process. 

Publication from ‘Festival Buku Asia’, Asia Book Festival in 2022

For Haru Publisher, the best-selling books are from self-development genre. Korean self-development books are down-to-earth, darkly funny, not preachy, and very relatable with our daily lives, making it loveable for being ‘the books that are so us’, quite different from books of the same genre from Western writers. The trend keeps shifting and recently literary works such as poetry and literary thriller also gain more and more interest among Indonesian readers.

This trend is of course different among publishers, but here is a fact: Indonesian readers are eager to know more about various genres of books from Korea. Even a serious book like ‘Kim Ji Yeong, Born 1982’ (Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2019), a novel with statistics embedded here and there throughout the book to enhance readers’ understandings of the story’s social context, is very well-accepted by Indonesian readers, that ‘Kim Ji Yeong, Born 1982’ novel has been reprinted several times, surpassing 9.000 copies, more or less. 

Another spearhead for the spread of Korean literature in Indonesia is the literature community. These communities often join hand with publishers to promote Korean literature works by holding book review contest in the form of writing or video, choosing Korean book for their regular book clubs, or holding giveaway to get people interested in the Korean books, etc.

One of the many Korean book review contests the writer participated in was a cooperation between Literature Translation Institute (LTI) Korean and bbbbookclub, a strong reading community which aims to advocate women, especially mothers, empowerment through literacy. The contest came up with four novels to be reviewed: ‘My Brilliant Life’ (Kim Ae Ran), ‘I’ll Go to You When the Weather Is Fine (Lee Do Woo), ‘Vegetarian’ (Han Kang), and ‘Please Look After Mom’ (Kyung Sook Shin). The contest ended with 176 submissions with ‘Please Look After Mom’ to be the most popular novel to be reviewed (62 reviews).

In the closing and awarding ceremony, Puty Puar as the community founder and leader, showed her appreciation towards readers who participated in the contest and dared to venture out of their usual taste in books. Korean literature may not be as well-known in Indonesia as K-Drama and K-Pop, but the interest is definitely growing, and this kind of event (book review contest) is one of the many means to introduce Korean literature works to Indonesian readers.

Publication from book review contest held by LTI Korea and bbbbookclub in 2022

Publishers of translated books from Korea work together with literature communities to engage with current and potential readers of Korean literature by holding literary festival and Korean book review contest. By doing these, they open conversations between writers and readers, often with additional insights from other writers or professionals with related background and experience to the book’s content, with the main goal of presenting the unique quality of Korean literature works. 

When the publication trend keeps shifting and nobody can really predict what kind of genre from K-Literature that will be widely accepted by Indonesian readers, publishers and literature communities still see these ways effective in the upcoming years.