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Yi Munyŏl 

Yi Munyŏl
SOUTH KOREAN AUTHOR

WRITTEN BY: Suh Ji-Moon

Yi Munyŏl
SOUTH KOREAN AUTHOR

BORN
May 18, 1948 (age 70)
Yongyang, South Korea

VIEW BIOGRAPHIES RELATED TO

CATEGORIES
novel
short story
novella

DATES
May 18

Yi Munyŏl, (born May 18, 1948, Yongyang, North Kyŏngsang, Korea), South Korean
author, regarded as a master of the short story and novella genres.

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Yi was born two years before the outbreak of the Korean War. When the war began,
his father defected to North Korea. As a consequence, his family had to contend with
poverty, social stigma, and police surveillance. These factors came into play when Yi
decided to drop out of school. Suffering from deep depression, he came close to
committing suicide. In order to deal with his personal pain, he read voraciously and
began to write.

After making his debut in 1979 with realistic stories centred on social problems, Yi
quickly went on to reveal the many facets of his talent. In Saram-ŭi Adeŭl (1979; Son
of Man), he explored numerous Western and East Asian theologies in the course of
tracing a young man’s determined quest for transcendence. Chŏlmŭn nal ŭi
ch’osang (1981; A Portrait of My Youth), a trilogy of novellas, recorded a young man’s
Herculean efforts to overcome his romantic nihilism and his impulse to commit
suicide. Hwagje-rŭl wihayŏ (1982; Hail to the Emperor!), a jeu d’esprit, is a
rambunctious satire on imperial delusions that showcases the author’s incredible
erudition. In Yŏngung sidae (1984; The Age of Heroes), Yi imaginatively reconstructed
what he imagined his father’s life might have been like after his defection to
communist North Korea. In each of the 16 short stories making up Kŭdae tasbi nŭn
kohyang e kaji mot’ari (1980; You Can’t Go Home Again), Yi examines one aspect of
hometown life, a spiritual space that has vanished beyond recall. The stories evoke
nostalgia, fury, or pained amusement.

Yi wrote several novels and more than 50 novellas and short stories. Among his other
works are Uridŭl ŭi ilgŭrŏjin yŏngung (1987; Our Twisted Hero), Siin (1991; The Poet),
and the 12-volume novel Pyŏn’gyŏng (1989–1998; Frontier Between Two Empires). In
1999 he won Korea’s coveted Ho-Am Prize in the Arts, an annual award given in ve
categories (science, engineering, medicine, arts, and community service) and
sponsored by the Samsung Foundation.
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Suh Ji-Moon  
Yi Munyŏl
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short story

Short story, brief ctional prose narrative that is shorter than a novel and
that usually…

novella

Novella, short and well-structured narrative, often realistic and satiric in tone, that…

Korean War

Korean War, con ict between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
(North Korea) and…

North Korea

North Korea, country in East Asia. It occupies the northern portion of the
Korean peninsula,…

poverty

Poverty, the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or…

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