Pak Wanso

Pak Wanso
Hangeul	박완서
Hanja	朴婉緖
Revised Romanization	Bak Wan-seo
McCune- Reischauer	Pak Wansŏ
See also : Korean name

Pak Wanso (also Park Wansuh, Park Wan-seo or Bak Wan-seo; * October 20, 1931 in Kaep'ung County , former Japanese Empire , now North Korea ; † January 22, 2011 near Seoul , South Korea ) was a South Korean writer. Pak Wanso is one of the most important and most widely read writers in South Korea. Some of her novels and stories have also been translated into German .

Life

She grew up in a modest, rural family and began studying Korean Studies at the prestigious Seoul National University , which she had to drop out of due to the Korean War . At the beginning of her literary career, which started late, was the novel The Naked Tree ( Namok ) , published in 1970 . Her complete works include 20 novels and about 60 short novels or short stories; the numbers vary depending on the source. She wrote until her death and received several literary awards, the last and most outstanding posthumously.

Her subjects in literature mostly include the Korean War , criticism of the South Korean middle class and the role of women in today's South Korea , which is still shaped by Confucianism . In her autobiographical novel Who Only Ate All The Knotweed? (Eng. Who Ate Up All the Shinga? ) (1992) Pak Wanso tells of her childhood and youth up to the middle of the Korean War. With minor changes, their themes and texts - apart from the Korean War perhaps - can also be transferred to Europe , since they touch on general human issues.

Pak Wanso was a Catholic , married with four daughters and a son who was killed in a car accident. On January 22, 2011, she died of cancer.

Works

• 나목 ( The Naked Tree ) (여성 동아, 1970) ISBN 8937843021
• 세상 에서 제일 무거운 틀니 ( The heaviest set of teeth in the world ) (한발 기, 여성 동아, 1972) ISBN 893784303X
• 지렁이 울음 소리 ( The Earthworm Crying ) (신동아, 1973)
• 부끄러움 을 가르 칩니다 ( I teach shame ) (일 지사, 1976) ISBN 8954601936
• 휘청 거리는 오후 ( The Staggering Afternoon ) (창작 과 비평사, 1977) ISBN 8933800263
• 목 마른 계절 ( The Thirsty Season ) (수문 서관, 1978) ISBN 8933800530
• 욕망 의 응달 ( The Shadow of Desire ) (수문 서관, 1979) ISBN 8933800360
• 살아 있는 날 의 시작 ( The Beginning of the Day I Lived ) (전예원, 1980) ISBN 8933800352
• 엄마 의 말뚝 ( My Mother's Stake ) (일월 서각, 1982) ISBN 9788979521177
• 오만 과 몽상 ( arrogance and imagination ) (한국 문학, 1980–1982) ISBN 8933800603
• 그해 겨울 은 따뜻했네 ( The winter of that year was warm ) (세계사, 1983) ISBN 9788933800614
• 그 가을 의 사흘 동안 ( Four Days of That Autumn ) (나남, 1985) ISBN 8930001084
• 도시 의 흉년 ( The Year of the Bad Harvest in the City ) (문학 사상사, 1979) ISBN 8933800271
• 미망 ( error ) (문학 사상사, 1990) ISBN 8933800891
• 그 많던 싱아 는 누가 다 먹었 을까 ( Who has only eaten the whole knotweed ) (웅진 닷컴, 1992) ISBN 89-01-01760-1
• 그 산이 정말 거기 있었 을까 ( Was the mountain really there ) (웅진 출판, 1995) ISBN 9788901017617
• 아주 오래된 농담 ( A very old joke ) (실천 문학사, 2000) ISBN 9788939203976
• 그 남자 네 집 ( His house ) (현대 문학, 2004) ISBN 9788972754275
• 친절한 복희 씨 ( Kind Ms. Pok-hŭi ) (문학 과 지성사, 2008) ISBN 9788932018140
• 세 가지 소원 - 작가 가 아끼는 이야기 모음 ( Three Wishes ) (마음 산책, 2009) ISBN 9788960900523
• 못 가본 길이 더 아름답다 ( Unknown paths are even more beautiful ) (현대 문학, 2010) ISBN 9788972754671
• 세상에 예쁜 것 ( The beautiful things in life ) (마음 산책, 2012) ISBN 9788960901445

Translations

German

• That man's family home . Translated by Ahn In-kyong and Anneliese Stern-Ko, published in Koreana 8 (2013) No. 1, 68–79, ISSN  1975-0617
• The family register . Translated by Helga Picht , at Verlag Volk und Welt , Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-353-01001-7
• The dreaming incubator . Translated by Woon-Jung Chei and Rainer Werning, Secolo Verlag, Osnabrück 1995, ISBN 978-3-929979-22-0
• Got stuck in the swamp . Contained in: At the end of time , edited and translated by Helga Picht and Heidi Kang , by Pendragon, Bielefeld 1999, ISBN 3-929096-84-6

English

• The Naked Tree . Cornell University East Asia Program, Ithaca NY, USA, 1995, ISBN 978-1885445735
• My Very Last Possession . ME Sharpe, Inc., Armonk NY, USA, 1999, ISBN 978-0765604286
• A Sketch of the Fading Sun . White Pine Press, Buffalo NY, USA, 1999, ISBN 978-1877727931
• Three Days in That Autumn . Jimoondang Publishing Co., Seoul, Korea, 2001, ISBN 978-0970548184
• Weathered Blossom (bilingual: Korean-English), Hollym International Corp., Elizabeth NJ, USA, 2006, ISBN 978-1565912229
• Who Ate Up All the Shinga? . Columbia University Press, New York, USA, 2009, ISBN 978-0-231-14898-6

Awards

• 1999: Manhae Literature Prize
• 2001: Hwang Sun won Literature Prize
• 2006: Ho Am Prize for Artists
• 2011: Order for Cultural Merit in Gold

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "South Korean author Park Wansuh died" : on news.orf.at January 20, 2011
2. ↑ 네이버 인물 검색: 박완서 , accessed January 20, 2014
3. ↑ KLTI Author Database: Park Wan Suh ( Memento of the original from June 7, 2013 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 January 20, 2014 

Web links

• Literature and Experience, by Pak Wan-so
• Writer, Park Wansuh (longer interview with photos)
• Expanded Bibliography of Pak Wan-so
• Asian Studies in Business and Economics , The Dreaming Incubator - and other short stories about women in Korea
• Cherished Themes from Park Wan-seo's Literary Life, by Choi Jae-bong
• A Tribute to Park Wan-so as she Passes Away at Age 80 (with photo and incomplete list of publications in English and Korean)

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. Pak is the family name here, Wan-so is the first name.