Anti-regime N. Korean novel receives Britain's PEN Award

SEOUL, Jan. 18 (Yonhap) -- A North Korean writer's story collection has received the PEN Award in Britain, a U.S. broadcaster reported Wednesday.

PEN, a group of British writers, has chosen "The Accusation," a collection of seven short stores critical of the repressive Kim Jong-un regime, for the award for the second half of last year, Voice of America reported.

The author, only identified as his pen name of "Bandi," still lives in the North, and his collection was translated by Deborah Smith, the broadcaster said. Smith is a British translator, who won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize for her translation of South Korean writer Han Kang's "The Vegetarian" in May last year.

The manuscript was secretly taken out of the despotic country by a North Korean defector years ago, and has been published in several nations, including South Korea, France and Japan.

Launched in 2012, the PEN Award is designed to encourage British publishers to acquire more books of "outstanding literary quality, strength and innovation" written in other languages for the country's literary diversity. It is given out twice a year.
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