The Story of Hong Gildong

A new, definitive translation of the quintessential Korean classic: the Robin Hood story of a magical boy who joins a group of robber bandits & becomes a king

*Selected as a Best Book of the Year by NPR & The Washington Post*

The Story of Hong Gildong is arguably the single most important work of classic Korean fiction. A fantastic story of adventure, it has been adapted into countless movies, television shows, novels, & comics in Korea. Until now, the earliest & fullest text of this incredible fable has been inaccessible to English readers.

Hong Gildong, the brilliant but illegitimate son of a noble government minister, cannot advance in society due to his second-class status, so he leaves home and becomes the leader of a band of outlaws. On the way to building his own empire and gaining acceptance from his family, Hong Gildong vanquishes assassins, battles monsters, and conquers kingdoms. Minsoo Kang’s expressive and lively new translation finally makes the authoritative text of this premodern tale available in English, reintroducing a noble and righteous outlaw & sharing a beloved hallmark of Korean culture.

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MINSOO KANG is an associate professor of history at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, specializing in the cultural & intellectual history of Western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In addition to articles in numerous journals, he is the author of Sublime Dreams of Living Machines: The Automaton in the European Imagination and the coeditor of Visions of the Industrial Age, 1830–1914: Modernity and the Anxiety of Representation in Europe. He is also a fiction writer and has published the short story collection Of Tales & Enigmas.

Translator's notes

In order to replicate the reading experience of The Story of Hong Gildong in the original language as much as possible, I have transliterated Korean words with no exact English equivalents.