Kim Won-il
Encyclopedia
Kim Won-il is a South Korea
n writer.
. The father left his wife and four children behind, to a legacy of great poverty and a cloud of ideological suspicion. With this background, Kim began writing in the early 1970s. His first works were short stories studded with childhood trauma and bitter memories, with families destroyed by unspecified conflicts. In other words, retellings of his own experiences, He published his first collection of stories, Soul of Darkness, in 1973 and it garnered the Hyundai Munhak Literary Prize in 1974. His first full-length novel, Twilight, was published in 1978.
Kim Won-il was a representative of "peoples literature," the literature in which authors argued, or portrayed a world in which, all the tragedies of Korea were the result of the separation of the nation by foreign powers directly after liberation. This literature argued that without the division there would not have been ideological feuding between the North and South, no sundered families, and no need for the dictatorships that ensued in the South. Consequently, in the 1980s, Korean authors began to focus on the issue of division and its results. This was called the "literature of division" and Kim Won-il was one of its strongest writers.
Kim believed that the war and division have left scars that economic prosperity cannot erase. In his novel Winter Valley (apparently Korean only), Kim retells the story of the massacre of the entire village of Koch’ang, who were killed on the suspicion that the village had worked with communist guerrillas during the Korean War
. Kim captures the psychological landscape of the scared-witless villagers caught between the Scylla and Charybdis
of leftwing and rightwing ideologies and the communist guerrillas hiding at the edges of Koch’ang.
The overall message contained in Kim Won-il's work, which ended in the 1993 nine-volume novel The Evergreen Pine is that historically determined suffering can be overcome, as can human frailty.
Kim's autobiographical novel A House with a Deep Garden was turned into a popular TV series in 1990. In volume 7, no 1 of Acta Koreana, Kim's Prison of the Heart was translated by Michael Finch and is also available online in a translation by Brother Anthony of Taize.
Kim has received many awards, including the Contemporary Literature Prize (1974), the Republic of Korea President’s Award in Literature (1979), the Korean Creative Writers’ Prize (1979), the Dong-in Literature Prize (1983), the Yi Sang Literature Prize (1990) and the Han Musuk Literature Prize (1998).
The Wind and the River
Today’s Wind (Oneul buneun baram, 1976)
Evening Glow (Noeul, 1978)
Meditations on a Snipe (1979)
Chains of Darkness (Eodumui saseul, 1979)
A Festival of Fire (Buleui jejeon, 1983)
Wind and River (Baram gwa gang, 1985)
Winter Valley (1987)
House with a Deep Garden (1989)
The Long Road From Here to There (Geugose ireuneun meon gil, 1992)
The Evergreen (Neul pureun sonamu, 1993)
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
n writer.
Life
In 1942 Kim Won-il was born in Chinyong, South Kyongsang Province. He was only a child when his father, a communist activist, defected to the North during the Korean WarKorean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
. The father left his wife and four children behind, to a legacy of great poverty and a cloud of ideological suspicion. With this background, Kim began writing in the early 1970s. His first works were short stories studded with childhood trauma and bitter memories, with families destroyed by unspecified conflicts. In other words, retellings of his own experiences, He published his first collection of stories, Soul of Darkness, in 1973 and it garnered the Hyundai Munhak Literary Prize in 1974. His first full-length novel, Twilight, was published in 1978.
Kim Won-il was a representative of "peoples literature," the literature in which authors argued, or portrayed a world in which, all the tragedies of Korea were the result of the separation of the nation by foreign powers directly after liberation. This literature argued that without the division there would not have been ideological feuding between the North and South, no sundered families, and no need for the dictatorships that ensued in the South. Consequently, in the 1980s, Korean authors began to focus on the issue of division and its results. This was called the "literature of division" and Kim Won-il was one of its strongest writers.
Kim believed that the war and division have left scars that economic prosperity cannot erase. In his novel Winter Valley (apparently Korean only), Kim retells the story of the massacre of the entire village of Koch’ang, who were killed on the suspicion that the village had worked with communist guerrillas during the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
. Kim captures the psychological landscape of the scared-witless villagers caught between the Scylla and Charybdis
Scylla and Charybdis
Being between Scylla and Charybdis is an idiom deriving from Greek mythology. Several other idioms, such as "on the horns of a dilemma", "between the devil and the deep blue sea", and "between a rock and a hard place" express the same meaning of "having to choose between two evils".-The myth and...
of leftwing and rightwing ideologies and the communist guerrillas hiding at the edges of Koch’ang.
The overall message contained in Kim Won-il's work, which ended in the 1993 nine-volume novel The Evergreen Pine is that historically determined suffering can be overcome, as can human frailty.
Kim's autobiographical novel A House with a Deep Garden was turned into a popular TV series in 1990. In volume 7, no 1 of Acta Koreana, Kim's Prison of the Heart was translated by Michael Finch and is also available online in a translation by Brother Anthony of Taize.
Kim has received many awards, including the Contemporary Literature Prize (1974), the Republic of Korea President’s Award in Literature (1979), the Korean Creative Writers’ Prize (1979), the Dong-in Literature Prize (1983), the Yi Sang Literature Prize (1990) and the Han Musuk Literature Prize (1998).
Works in English
Evening GlowThe Wind and the River
Works in Korean (Partial)
Spirit of Darkness (Eodum ui chukje, 1973)Today’s Wind (Oneul buneun baram, 1976)
Evening Glow (Noeul, 1978)
Meditations on a Snipe (1979)
Chains of Darkness (Eodumui saseul, 1979)
A Festival of Fire (Buleui jejeon, 1983)
Wind and River (Baram gwa gang, 1985)
Winter Valley (1987)
House with a Deep Garden (1989)
The Long Road From Here to There (Geugose ireuneun meon gil, 1992)
The Evergreen (Neul pureun sonamu, 1993)