Seeing Even with Patches on Both Eyes

Kim Hyesoon is the author of fourteen poetry collections in Korean, which have been translated into several languages. The Autobiography of Death, translated into English by Don Mee Choi (New Directions, 2018), received the Griffin Poetry Prize. Kim, who has also won a National Book Critics Circle Award, a Cikada Prize, and the Midang Literature Award, worked for many years as a creative writing professor at the Seoul Institute of the Arts. (updated 10/2024)

Cindy Juyoung Ok is the author of Ward Toward (Yale University Press, 2024) from the Yale Series of Younger Poets and the translator of The Hell of That Star by Kim Hyesoon (Wesleyan University Press, forthcoming 2026). Her translations of Kim’s work have appeared in The Paris Review, AGNI, The Hopkins Review, and Copper Nickel. She’s assistant professor of English at the University of California Davis. (updated 10/2025)