Yi In-seong

Yi In-seong
Yi In-seong
Hangeul	이인성
Hanja	李仁成
Revised Romanization	I in-seong
McCune- Reischauer	Yi In-sŏng
See also : Korean name

Yi In-seong (born December 9, 1953 in Chinhae , Kyŏngsangnam-do ) is a South Korean writer .

Life

Yi In-Seong was born in Chinhae in December 1953. His family fled south during the Korean War . The family was deeply Christian and he grew up in a puritan family environment. In 1960, the year the April Revolution broke out, he started primary school. This was followed by visits to the renowned Kyŏnggi Middle and High School and the Seoul National University , where he studied French literature. On the recommendation of a friend, he became a member of a literary circle at high school and so began to be interested in writing. He received the school's literature prize for a story he wrote in the first grade of high school. From then on, his interest focused on narrative literature.

In 1973, in his first year at Seoul National University , he was awarded the University's Literature Prize for his story Spend the Summer . The following year he received the university newspaper 's literature prize for his work Nur mein, nur mein, nur mein . In the autumn of the same year he founded the journal Sprachforschung with fellow authors and joined a theater group. The concept for his novel Seasons of Exile came about during his time as a reservist.

In 1980 he made his debut with the first episode of the serialized novel Seasons of Exile in the spring edition of the quarterly magazine "Munhak-kwa chisŏng" (literature and understanding) founded by Romanists. In the same year he published his second novel The Grave of this time and in February of the following year he received his master's degree with a thesis on Samuel Beckett . In 1982 he became professor of French literature at the Hankuk Foreign Language University . During this time he founded the magazine “Uri sedae munhak” (literature of our time) with writers like Lee Seong-bok and Jung Kwari.

The military dictatorship , which had seized state power after the bloody suppression of the democracy movement in Kwangju , forced many critical literary magazines such as "Ch'angjak-kwa pip'yŏng" (creation and criticism) and "Munhak-kwa chisŏng", in which Yi In-seong had published many of his works - including his first volume of novels The Seasons of Exile in 1983 - to cease publication. From 1984 to 1986 he groped his way through the stories No Other Choice , Letter Writing , About You , Your Interrogation, My Statement , And in order to understand him, questions to you, who yourself are, to current affairs. In 1988 he published theories on theater, a treatise on French theater, and in 1989 he published the serial novel Endlos deep breath , for which he was awarded the literary prize of the daily newspaper " Hankook Ilbo ". In the same year he also began teaching French literature at his alma mater, Seoul National University, and began his doctoral thesis on the development process and meaning of Molière's dramas. In June 1990, literary critic Kim Hyun died . Yi In-Seong spent the most time with the compilation of Kim Hyun's body of work and took a while for the letter spacing. Instead, he read a lot of poetry. The experience of reading poetry is later reflected in his most famous novel Wanting to go crazy and not being able to go crazy .

After three years without publications, he published the novel Last Love Fantasy in 1991 . In 1992 the literary theoretical work Lustspiele für das Fest followed: An investigation into Molière based on his master's thesis. In 1994 he published the serialized novel Wanting to Get Insane and Not Being able to Get Insane, which he worked on for two years. The novel was finished in France. After his return in 1995 he published the work "Munhak-kwa chisŏngsa" as a monograph. From that time on he began to deal with the problem of ' desire '. In this context of reflecting on the problem of 'desire', an experiment of pure immorality and an island at the mouth of the river appeared . In the late 1990s he also published several essays on narrative theory. Representative for this are Der Sprache, durch die Sprache, für die Sprache: Literature in the 21st century or the resistance to vegetation and the novel or suicide . In 1999, Yi In-Seong published his fourth volume of novels by Insel on the Estuary .

Work

Korean

• 낯선 시간 속 으로 ( Seasons of Exile ) Seoul: Munhak-kwa chisŏngsa 1983
• 한없이 낮은 숨결 ( Endless deep breath ) Seoul: Munhak-kwa chisŏngsa 1989
• 마지막 연애 의 상상 ( Last Love Fantasy ) Seoul: Sol 1992
• 미쳐 버리고 싶은, 미쳐 지지 않는 ( Wanting to get crazy and not being able to get crazy ) Seoul: Munhak-kwa chisŏngsa 1995
• 강 어귀 에 섬 하나 ( Island at the mouth of the river ) Seoul: Munhak-kwa chisŏngsa 1999
• 식물성 의 저항 ( Resistance of Vegetability ) (Prose Volume) Seoul: Yŏllimwon 2000
• 축제 를 향한 희극: 몰리에르 에 관한 한 연구 ( Comedy for the festival: An investigation into Molière ) (literary theory) Seoul: Munhak-kwa chisŏngsa 1992

Translations

German

• Seasons of Exile Edition Peperkorn, Thunum 2012 ISBN 9783929181869

French

• Saisons d'exil , L'Harmattan, 2003
• Interdit de folie Imago, 2010
• September méandres pour une île decrescenzo editeurs, 2013

Awards

• 2013 - Kim Yu-jŏng Literature Prize
• 1989 - Korean Literature Prize for Authors

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Korean Literature Authors Name Authority Database: 이인성 ( Memento of October 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on January 25, 2014 (English).
2. ↑ Naver: People: 이인성 , accessed July 29, 2013 (Korean).
3. ↑ LTI Korea: 문인 DB: Yi In-seong ( memento from November 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on July 26, 2013 (Korean).
4. ↑ LTI Korea: Database: Yi In-seong ( Memento from November 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on July 26, 2013 (English).

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. Yi is the family name here, In-seong is the first name.