Plus, publishing's inherent conservatism, means that what little did get through was weighted towards the commercial end of the scale, which is not the kind of writing that excites me.

Simon Collinson, of digital publisher Canelo and über-cool Aussie mag The Lifted Brow, is our digital producer; Sarah Shin, Verso's comms director, is helping us out with press publicity; Soraya Gilanni, who mainly does production and set design for films and commercials, is our art director.

There’s something very freeing about losing the anchors that have always defined you. Frightening, sad, but exhilarating in a poignant way, as well. You’re free to float to the moon and evaporate or sink to the bottom of the deepest ocean. But you’re free to explore. Some people confuse that with drifting, I suppose. I like to think of it as growing.

All of which suggested literary translation, and Korean seemed a good bet - barely anything available in English, yet it was a modern, developed country, so the work had to be out there, plus the rarity would make it both easier to secure a student grant and more of a niche when it came to work.

This and the small sample size inevitably leads to stereotypes - sweeping family sagas from India, 'lush' colonial romances from South-East Asia. Mother and daughter reconciling generational differences through preparing a 'traditional' meal together. Geishas. And even if something more exciting does manage to sneak through, it gets the same insultingly clichéd cover slapped on it anyway, so no one will ever know.

But there's also a strong emotional core to counterbalance the experimentalism, with some incredibly moving passages around the narrator's relationship with her (also female) German teacher. It's beautiful.

Possibly the best thing about the whole experience is that Kang and I are now really good friends. It's as much of a pleasure and privilege to know her as a person as it is to translate her work. She's been over for two UK publicity tours, which means lots of time to chat on trains etc., and she was hear all last summer for a writer's residency in Norwich, where I got to meet her son too.