Moonji Classics
한국 문학의 최전선의 에너지를 가장 먼저 만날 수 있는 곳
The Complete
Works of
Choi In-hun
Choi In-hun was born in 1934 in Hoeryong, North Hamgyong Province, he studied law at Seoul National University(HON 2017). As a professor of creative writing at the Seoul Institute of Art from 1977 to May 2001, he robustly published books and taught numerous students. His earliest works, “The Rise and Fall of the Grey Club” and “The Story of Reuel,” appeared in Free Literature in 1959. Since then, he authored the novels The Square/The Nine Cloud Dream, A Grey Man, Journey to the West, A Day in the Life of Ku-bo the Novelist, Typhoon, Christmas Carol/Reflections on a Mask, The Legs in the Sky/The Duman River, House of Idols, The Voice of the Governor-General, and Hwadu; the play Once Upon a Long Time Ago; and the essay collections Dream of Utopia, Literature and Ideology, and Meditation on the Road. His work has been translated and published in many languages: The Square in English, Japanese, French, German, Russian, and Chinese; A Grey Man in English; and Once Upon a Long Time Ago in English and Russian. He passed away in July 2018.
He was the recipient of the 1966 Dong-in Literary Award, the 1971 Dong-A Ilbo Theatre Award, the 1977 Best Playwright Award at the Korean Theatre and Film Awards(currently Baeksang Arts Awards), the 1978 Meritorious Award in the Arts Category of the JoongAng Cultural Awards, the 1979 Seoul Theatre Critics Group Award, the 1994 Isan Literary Award, the 2011 Park Kyongni Award, among others. He was posthumously awarded the Gold Crown Class Order of Cultural Merit by the President of South Korea.
intellectual and cultural
foundation
for the new generation.
Choi In-hun, one of the greatest writers of modern Korean literature, has prolifically de veloped a monumental oeuvre that locates the Korean people in the seismic amplitude of 20th-century world history with a focus on illuminating the essence of human existence. The Square, the most well-known among his works, has garnered numerous fans over multiple generations since its publication in 1960 to this very day. The desire and anguish felt by Lee Myeongjun, the protagonist of The Square, sharply resonates with the state of Koreans throughout the tumult of the modern era, namely the colonization, civil war, and national division. Choi’s literary worldview is considered to this day the epitome of social critique in modern Korean writing. With his interest in modernity, resistance to ideology, and search for new forms, the author reached the apex of self-reflection aided by his one of-a-kind virtuosity that have not resorted to mysticism or realism trendy in the era of dead God and absent mythology. It might be appropriate to say that he lived his words as much as he wrote them.
• The Square/The Nine Cloud Dream(2008)
• A Grey Man(2008)
• Journey to the West(2008)
• One Day in the Life of Ku-bo the Novelist(2009)
• Typhoon(2009)
• Christmas Carol/Reflections on a Mask(2009)
• The Legs in the Sky/The Duman River(2009)
• House of Idols(2009)
• The Voice of the Governor-General(2009)
• Once Upon a Long Time Agor(2009)
• Dream of Utopia(2010)
• Literature and Ideology(2009)
• Meditation on the Road(2010)
• Hwadu 1,2(2008)