“The thing that makes it quite difficult to translate Musil’s work is that you really have to get what he’s saying. “The expression, ‘lost in translation,’ exists for a good reason,” she told the audience at the launch. Given that it took the original author more than two decades to write the three volumes of the novel, it was not surprising that it took Shin 15 years to translate them. The translation by Shin, a professor of German literature at Korea University, was published in March by Nanam Publishing House. The novel itself is unfinished, for Musil began publishing the novel, divided into volumes, in 1930 and died in 1942 without completing it. “It is no small feat, for she has translated a work that is over 1,000 pages long, and a work that is one of the main representations of 20th-century Austrian literature.” The work, generally considered one of the most important in modern literature, had been translated by other authors and experts including Ko Won, but previous translations did not cover all known chapters of the work.

“We are marking today the first-ever full translation of ‘Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften ’ into Korean, a feat undertaken by Professor Shin Ji-young,” said Wolfgang Angerholzer, Austrian ambassador to Korea, at a book launch at his residence in Seoul on Friday. Austrian author Robert Musil's novel 'The Man Without Qualities' has been fully translated into Korean for the first time, announced the Austrian Embassy in Seoul on Friday. From left, Wolfgang Angerholzer, Austrian ambassador to Korea Shin Ji-young, professor of German literature at Korea University Shin Hye-yang, professor of German literature at Sookmyung Women's University and Moon Gwang-hoon, professor of German language and literature at Chungbuk National University, attend the launch of Shin's translation of Austrian author Robert Musil's ″The Man without Qualities″ at the diplomatic residence of Austria in Seoul on Friday.

Musil the man without qualities