Hwang Sok-yong

Korean spelling pseudonym
Hangeul	황석영
Hanja	黃 晳 暎
Revised Romanization	Hwang Seok-yeong
McCune- Reischauer	Hwang Sŏgyŏng
See also : Korean name

Hwang Sok-yong (born January 4, 1943 in Xinjing , then Manchukuo , today's People 's Republic of China ) is one of the best-known authors of South Korea and at the same time one of those who deal realistically and critically with the past and social reality of South Korea. He experienced the Korean War and was a soldier in the Vietnam War . The central theme of his texts is the conflict between tradition and modernity.

Life

Hwang Sok-yong was born on January 4, 1943 in Xinjing (now Changchun ), the capital of Manchukuo. As a schoolboy he wrote his first stories. He graduated from Dongguk University with a degree in philosophy . His writing career began only after his return from the Vietnam War in 1969, in which he fought on the American side. In the 1970s and 80s, Hwang Sok-yong was actively involved in the democracy movement and in the struggle for workers' rights, and in 1980 experienced first hand the brutal violence of the military during the Gwangju uprising . During this time he wrote his novels The Foreign Place (1976), The Story of Mr. Han (1972) and The Road to Samp'o (2000), which dealt particularly with the question of the labor movement , but also the partition of Korea . In 1985 he formulated a manifesto for the democracy movement and published his novel The Shadow of Arms , which critically examines the Korean involvement in the Vietnam War.

After attending a writers' meeting in North Korea , Hwang lived temporarily in Berlin and New York from 1989 until he returned to Seoul in 1993, where he was sentenced to seven years in prison for visiting North Korea. After five years in prison, he was pardoned in 1998 by the newly elected President Kim Dae-jung and appointed South Korean cultural ambassador to North Korea. After his release, he published the novels Der ferne Garten (2000) and Der Gast (2001), which reflect the historical roots of the war and the Korean crisis, which he described as a state of homelessness.

Works

• Stories (1962)
• The Story of Mr. Han (1970)
• 한씨 연대기 (1972)
  • German translation of Oh Dong-sik: The story of Mr. Han , Munich: dtv (2005) ISBN 978-3423244886
• 북망, 멀고도 고적 한 곳 Pungmang - further, time-honored place (1975)
• 장길산 Changgilsan (1976)
• 무기 의 그늘 The shadows of weapons
  • French translation by Lim Yeong-hee, Françoise Nagel, Marc Tardieu: L'Ombre des armes , Zulma; Literature - ancien. maquette edition (2003) ISBN 978-2843042478
• 삼포 가는 길 The Road to Samp'o (2000)
  • French translation by Choi Mikyung and Jean-Noël Juttet: La Route de Sampo , Zulma; Literature - ancien. maquette edition (2002) ISBN 978-2843041853
• 오래된 정원 (2000)
  • German translation of Oh Dong-sik: Der ferne Garten , Munich: dtv (2005) ISBN 978-3423244602
• 손님 (2001)
  • German translation of Young Lie: Der Gast , Munich: dtv (2007) ISBN 978-3423245630

Further works in German translation:

• Weeds and other prose , Edition Delta (2011)
• A person like you and me , in: Koreanische Erzählungen , Munich: dtv (2005) ISBN 978-3423133814
• Familar things . `Translation into English Sora-Kim Russell. Scribe, 2017

Film adaptations

• 숲 과 늪 Forest and Swamp (1975)
• 삼포 가는 길 The Road to Sampoo (1975)
• 어둠 의 자식 들 Children of Darkness (1981)
• 장사 의 꿈 The Dealer's Dream (1985)
• 장길산 Changgilsan (2004)
• 오래된 정원 The Far Garden (2007)

Awards

• 1989: Manhae Literature Prize
• 2000: Isan Literature Prize
• 2000: Tanjae Prize
• 2001: Taesan Literature Prize
• 2004: Artist of the Year Award from the Promotion Agency for Korean Culture and Art
• 2004: Manhae Prize
• 2008: Mark of Respect Award

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 문인 DB: Hwang Sok-yong ( Memento of the original from November 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed August 9, 2013 (Korean).  
2. ↑ 황석영 . Entry in Doosan encyclopedia via Naver . Retrieved August 9, 2013.
3. ↑ Novel of a Tortured Country. Hwang-Sko-yong's "The Story of Mr. Han" and "The Far Garden" by Ludger Lütkehaus , literaturkritik.de accessed on August 9, 2013 (German).

Web links

• Collection of stories in German UNKRAUT and other prose . Translated from the Korean by Kang Seung-Hee, Oh Dong-Sik, Torsten Zaiak and Martin Tutsch. Edited and cover design by Juana Burghardt. Edition Delta, Stuttgart 2011
• Biography in Korean and English
• Literature by and about Hwang Sok-yong in the catalog of the German National Library

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. Hwang is the family name here, Sok-yong is the first name.