Yi Mun-yol

Yi Mun-yol (born May 18, 1948) is a South Korean writer. Yi's given name at birth was Mun; the second character in his name, yol (which translates as "writer"), was added after he took up a writing career.^[1][2] His works include novels, short stories and Korean adaptations of classic Chinese novels^[1] as well as political and social commentaries.^[3] An informal count has estimated that over 30 million copies of his books have been sold^[4] and, as of 2021, they have been translated into 21 different languages.^[5] His works have garnered many literary awards^[6] and many have been adapted for film and television.^[4]

Life

Yi Mun-yol's father was a member of Korea's "wealthy elite". He had a 40 room residence and 200 pyeong, or 660 square meters, of land. He studied in Britain and taught agriculture as Seoul National University. But at the outbreak of the Korean War, he joined the communist cause, abandoned his family and moved to North Korea.^[7]

Yi Mun-yol was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1948, but the outbreak of the Korean War and his father's defection to North Korea forced his family to move about until they settled in Yeongyang, Gyeongsangbuk-do, the ancestral seat of his family.^[1] The fact that his father defected dramatically affected his life, as he was seen and treated as "the son of a political offender," and was "passed around among relatives ^[8] He dropped out of the College of Education of Seoul National University in 1970. He then studied for the Korean bar exam and failed three times. He entered literary contests with little success. The manuscript of Son of Man, which later became his debut novel in book form, was rejected. He then joined the army to complete his compulsory military service.^[7]

After he was discharged from the army, he taught school at a private institute.^[7] Finally, one of his short stories received honorable mention in literary awards given by Daegu Maeil Newspaper in 1977, after which he adopted the name Yi Mun-yol.^[1] The second character in his adopted name, yol, means “writer”.^[2] He was awarded the Dong-A Ilbo award for a short story, Saehagok, in 1979. In 1979, he was also able at last to have his novel, The Son of Man, published and it won the prestigious Today's Writer Award. He then published a series of novels and short stories including Golden Phoenix, Hail to the Emperor, Age of Heroes and Our Twisted Hero, each of which won awards.^[1] He reached the peak of his literary productivity in the 1980’s and 1990’s but continued to write.^[8] His novel Lithuanian Woman won the Dongni Literature Prize in 2012.^[9] From 1994 to 1997, he taught Korean language and literature at Sejong University. Since 1999, he has also served as the head of Buak Literary Center, an educational program for writers which he founded.^[1] He is currently a chair professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.^[8]

Work

Yi has written novels, short stories, and Korean adaptations of classic Chinese novels,^[1] as well as political and social commentaries.^[3] In 2014, he stated "I have written 50 short stories and novellas in six volumes, 18 novels in 20 volumes, and two epic novels in 22 volumes. In addition, I have written two volumes of essays, one travelogue, and compiled and annotated a total of 20 volumes of Chinese classics, as well as 10 volumes of short and medium-length masterpieces of world literature."^[2]

Yi's works include two literary tendencies. The first tendency is utilization of an allegorical view of Korean society, one that traces the ways in which various lives (recent, historical and in legend) are shaped and governed by dominant ideology and power, including, in particular, the tension between authoritarianism and liberalism (exemplified by Son of Man^[10] and Our Twisted Hero ^[11]) and between traditionalism and modernism (exemplified by The Golden Phoenix^[12] and The Old Hatter^[13]). The first aspect of this tendency has been described as an emphasis on the adverse consequences of "reckless faith in ideology, belief or theories which people often cling to in the context of history, religion and academic studies".^[7] The second tendency is a focus on his internal world, fictionalizing his experience of growing up and the process by which his worldview was formed (exemplified by his epic novel Border^[14] and the short story Appointment with My Brother).^[15] In addition, some of his novels display a particularly high regard for poetry and art.^[16]

On being awarded the prestigious "Today's Writer Award" for The Son of Man in 1979, Yi emerged as the most noteworthy writer of the time. The Son of Man explores the theme of the complex relationship between God and humanity in light of the finite nature of human existence inadvertently cast in an infinite universe, through the eyes of the protagonist who is doubtful of the Christian Weltanschauung.^[17]

With the huge success of the critically acclaimed Hail to the Emperor!, Yi established himself as one of the most significant and popular novelists in Korea. The novel deals with the heated competition of imperial world powers around Korea at the end of the 19th century and goes on through the Japanese colonial era, the Korean War and the period of military dictatorial rule, penetrating through the modern history of Korea. With a Don Quixote-esque protagonist, the novel adopts a rich traditional style of prose displaying a comprehensive understanding of traditional East Asian literature, and drawing readers into the narrative with powerful descriptions of the turbulent history of Korea.^[18]

Our Twisted Hero, set in the latter part of the era of military dictatorial rule, brings us a microcosm of society as demonstrated in an elementary school classroom, which serves as a metaphor for the larger society as a whole.. In Homo Executants Yi explores how stiffened political ideologies smother humans, tracing the annihilation of the flexibility in human nature. The Golden Phoenix, for which Yi Mun-yol was awarded the Dong-in Literary Award in 1972 uses paintings and calligraphic works of the traditional arts to express to the reader the conflict between the technical skill of creativity and the art of the cultivation of personality.^[19]

Yi has been awarded almost every major national literary prize, and his works have been translated into 21 different languages as of 2021.^[5] An informal count has estimated that over 30 million copies of his books have been sold.^[4] An estimated 50 thousand copies have been sold in France.^[20] One of his works was also selected by the German Literature Society as one of the best publications of 2011.^[21] In 2011, Yi Mun-yol was also the first Korean fiction writer to have a story appear in The New Yorker ("An Anonymous Island," translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl). Many of Yi's novels have been adapted for film including: Our Twisted Hero, Portrait of Days of Youth, Our Joyful Young Days, Anonymous Island, Son of Man, Lette's Song, All That Falls Has Wings.^[4] The first four of these are available with English captions from the Korean Classic Film Archive Website.^[22][23] His novel, Fox Hunting, was adapted for a musical play, The Last Empress, which depicts the life of Empress Myeongseong, who the Japanese agents referred to as a fox spirit and their operation to assassinate her as fox hunting.^[24] The play was performed in Seoul, London and New York.^[25]

Awards

Yi has won numerous literary awards including the following:^[3][6]

– Dong-A Ilbo award (1979) for Saehagok
– Today's Writer Award (1979) for Son of Man
– Dong-in Literary Award (1982) for Golden Phoenix, also known as Garuda
– Korea Literature Prize (1983) for Hail to the Emperor
– Joongang Literary Award (1984) for Age of Heroes
– Yi Sang Literary Award (1987) for Our Twisted Hero
– Hyundae Munhak Prize (1992) The Poet and The Thief
– Republic of Korean Culture and Arts Award (1992)
– France Medal of Cultural and Artistic Merit(1992)
– 21st Century Literature Award (1998) for The Night Before, Or the Last Night of This Era
– Ho-am Prize for the Arts (1999) for Border, also know as Change
– The National Academy of Arts Award (2009)
– Dongni Literature Prize (2012) for Lithuanian Woman^[9]

Works

• The Son of Man (Saram-ui adeul 1979)
• Wild Ox (Deulso) (1979)
• Hail to the Emperor! (Hwangjae-reul wihayeo 1980)
• A Snail's Outing(1980)
• At This Desolate Station(1980)
• Geumsijo(1983)
• Lette's Story (Lette-ui yeon-ga) (1983)
• The Age of Heroes (Yeongungsidae) (1984)
• The Poet and the Thief'
• The Night Before, Or the Last Night of This Era
• Our Twisted Hero (Urideul-ui ilgeureojin yeongung 1987), which was made into a 1992 film, directed by Park Chong-won
• The Golden Phoenix(1987)
• The Poet (Si-in 1991)
• The Shadow of Darkness(1991)
• The Border (Byeongyeong)(1994)
• An Appointment with My Brother(1994)
• For the Vanished Things(1995)
• Frontier Between Two Empires (epic novel in 12 Volumes, 1998)
• Homo Executans (Homo ekskutanseu 2006)
• Lithuanian Woman (Lituania yeoin 2011)

Works in Translation (English)

• Hail to the Emperor! (Pace International Research, 1986), translated by Sol Sun-bong^[26]
• An Appointment with My Brother (Jimoondang, 1994), translated by Ji-Moon Suh.^[27] A newer translation with a slightly different title was published in 2017.
• The Poet (The Harvill, 1995), translated by Brother Anthony and Chong-Wha Chung^[28]
• Our Twisted Hero (Hyperion, 2001), translated by Kevin O'Rourke^[29]
• Twofold Song (Hollym International Corp. 2004), bilingual: Korean and English, translated by Kwon Kyong-Mi, illustrated by Kwak Sun-young^[30]
• An Anonymous Island (The New Yorker, 2011), translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl^[31]
• Pilon's Pig (ASIA Publishers, 2013), bilingual, translated by Jamie Chang^[32]
• Winter That Year (Words Without Borders 2014), translated by Brother Anthony from a short story in part 3 of Portrait of Days of Youth^[33]
• Son of Man (Dalkey Archive Press, 2015, translated by Brother Anthony)^[34]
• The Old Hatter - Short story in You Will Never Return to Your Homeland (Brother Anthony's web page) translated by Brother Anthony^[13]
• Meeting with My Brother (Columbia University Press, 2017), translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl^[35]

See also

• Korean literature
• List of Korean novelists
• New Yorker editor Cressida Leyshon's interview with Heinz Insu Fenkl on translating "An Anonymous Island"
• KTLIT editor Charles Montgomery on TBS eFM’s 1013 Main Street.l on Yi Mun-yol’s “Our Twisted Hero”

References

External links

• Author Information from LTI Korea
• Review summary of Our Twisted Hero
• Review: The Guises of Authoritarianism in Our Twisted Hero
• Picture of Yi Mun-yol
• Yi Mun-yol at IMDb