Oh Junghee (born 1947) is a South Korean novelist.
1. Life
Oh was born in 1947 in Seoul. After the Korean War, she and her family moved to the Chinatown in Incheon, where her autobiographical story "Junggugin geori" (중국인 거리 Chinatown) is set. During her high school days, she was tormented by the death of her youngest sibling, leading her to have suicidal thoughts and run away from home.
Oh went to Sorabol College of Arts to study creative writing, where she began to write seriously. She made her literary debut in 1968 when her short story "Wangujeom yeoin" (완구점 여인 The Woman at the Toy Store) won the JoongAng Ilbo New Writer's Contest. Over her career, Oh has published over a dozen short story collections, a novel, and multiple essay collections. Her work has been translated and published in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. She received the LiBeratur Award for her novel Sae (새 The Bird) in 2003. She is the recipient of the Yi Sang Literary Award and the Dong-in Literary Award, among others.
2. Writing
Oh is considered to have made unparalleled achievements in embodying the innermost emotions of woman's identity in the patriarchal system. Blurring the boundary between reality and fantasy, with poetic language that refuses a flat interpretation, she is perceived as laying the foundation for Korean feminist literature of the 1980s and beyond.
Her early works deal with physical disability, distorted eroticism, and incomplete sexuality, portraying the destructive impulses of those who live completely isolated from the rest of the world. "Jeonyeogui geim" (저녁의 게임 Evening Games) criticizes patriarchal authority through a protagonist who is seemingly an obedient daughter but moonlights as a prostitute, as well as her mother who dies in a mental hospital after giving birth to a deformed baby and killing it because of her father. "Beonje" (번제 Ritual Sacrifice) and "Bomnal" (봄날 One Spring Day) are further examples of extraordinary and aberrant stories about the conflict between sexuality and motherhood, using abortion as their subject matter.
In the 1980s, Oh was influenced by the period of political confusion exemplified by the May 18 Democratization Movement. Works from this period include "Yunyeonui tteul" (유년의 뜰 Garden of My Childhood), a story of a family whose father went missing during the war; "Byeolsa" (별사 Parting Words), which depicts the complex psychology of a woman; "Yahoe" (야회 The Evening Party), which reveals the snobbism of middle-class society and contempt toward it; and "Donggyeong" (동경 The Bronze Mirror), a story that narrates the life and psychology of an old couple who have no expectation for their life ahead.
In Oh's later stories, her characters are more active and down-to-earth, unlike those of her earlier works who are timid and immersed in their inner worlds. "Geurimja barbgi" (그림자 밟기 Stepping on Shadows) and "Paroho" (파로호 The Paroho Lake) embody the regret and frustration caused by watching her home country swept by disaster and corruption in a far away land, which leads to the will to fight against the dishonest world in "Bulkkot nori" (불꽃놀이 The Fireworks). "Yet umul" (옛우물 The Old Well) is also about overcoming the contradiction and confusion created by reality. Through made-up memories of an old well, and longing for it, Oh reflects on where feminine depths really lie.
