Kim Seungok (born December 1941) is a South Korean novelist and screenwriter.
1. Life
Born in Osaka, Japan, Kim Seungok returned to Korea after its liberation in 1945. There, he was raised in Suncheon, Jeollanam-do where he graduated from Suncheon High School. In 1960, he studied French literature at Seoul National University at a time when the department and university were the center of intellectual discontent in Seoul. While at Seoul National University, Kim was a cartoonist for the Seoul Economic Daily and published his first major story at age 19, "Saengmyeongyeonseup" (생명연습 Practice for Life), winning the Hankook Ilbo New Writer's Contest in 1962. The same year, while still a junior at university, Kim founded the literary journal The Age of Prose (산문시대) with Kim Hyeon, Yeom Mu-ung, and Kim Chi-su, and published his short stories "Geon" (건 Dry) and "Hwansangsucheop" (환상수첩 Fantasy Notebook) there. Most of his representative works, such as "Mujin gihaeng" (무진기행 Journey to Mujin) and "Seoul, 1964 nyeon gyeoul" (서울, 1964년 겨울 Seoul, 1964, Winter), were published soon after. His greatest success was "Seoul 1964 nyeon gyeoul," a work that crystallized a Korean sense of loss and meaninglessness attendant to the industrialization of Korea and resulting nihilism. In 1967, "Journey to Mujin" was adapted into the film Mist. Kim Seung-ok was the screenwriter, and director Kim Soo-yong won the Best Director award at the 14th Asia-Pacific Film Festival.
Kim served as an editor-in-chief at Samtoh and later as a professor of Korean literature at Sejong University. In 1995, a five-volume set of his work, Kim Seungok soseol jeonjip (김승옥소설전집 Complete Works of Kim Seungok), was published. The Kim Seungok Literary Museum was established in 2010, and the Kim Seungok Literary Award has been awarded every year since 2013.
2. Writing
Fiction
Kim depicted an individual’s sense of loss as he wanders, unable to adapt to reality during the industrialization of South Korea in the 1960s. His sensuous writing style and quality fiction were praised for starting a “revolution of sensibilities” in Korean literature.
His works depict the daily life of petit bourgeois individuals who are unable to adapt to reality rife with materialism and social climbing in the rapid industrialization of the country. In his early works, Kim shows a burning desire to escape the bounds of quotidian existence; he often does this through fantasy or hallucination. However, Kim quickly began to recognize the strength of social constraints, and his works began to reflect an inability to exceed these constraints. Kim's stance turned towards distance and nihilism, in which there was no such thing as a dream. The romantic outsider is replaced by atomistic narrators in uncaring society. Later works all detail the anomic lives of narrators who are trapped by modernizing society. Finally, just before he retired from fiction entirely, Kim attempted to use erotic passion in somewhat the same way he had used hallucination/fantasy in his earlier works. Kim's stories in this vein were not well received.
Kim was the first Korean writer to win both the Yi Sang Literary Award (he won the inaugural award in 1977) and the Dong-in Literary Award (In 1965, for "Seoul, Winter, 1964"), but after 1967 his creative energies began to dissipate. In 1980, he was serializing a novel about young intellectuals during the Yushin Reform titled Meonjiui bang (먼지의 방 Room of Dust) in the Dong-A Ilbo but stopped after the 15th installment, citing the loss of will to write after the Gwangju Massacre.[1] In 1981, Kim underwent a mystical experience and returned to religion. Afterward, he virtually stopped writing.
Cartoonist
In college, Kim drew cartoons for the school newspaper, and earned tuition by serializing Pagoda yeonggam (파고다 영감 Grandpa Pagoda) in the Seoul Economic Daily. He also drew the cover for Choi In-hun’s novel Gwangjang (광장 The Square). In 2016, he held an exhibition of portraits he drew of literary figures, including Kim Hyeon, Hwang Sun-won, and Kim Ji-ha. In 2017, he published a picture book titled Geurimeuro tteonaneun Mujin gihaeng (그림으로 떠나는 무진기행 A Journey to Mujin in Pictures).
Screenwriter
In 1966, he started working in film by writing a screenplay based on “Journey to Mujin.” He adapted Kim Dong-in’s "Potatoes" into film, which was well received at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland and reviewed in Le Monde. Afterward, he adapted Cho Seon-jak’s Yeongja-ui jeonseongsidae (영자의 전성시대 Yeong-ja’s Heydays) and Cho Hae-il’s Gyeoul yeoja (겨울 여자 Winter Woman), rising to fame as a writer-turned-screenwriter alongside Choi In-ho in the 1970s, when best-selling fiction was often adapted into a film. His adaptation of Lee O-young’s Janggunui suyeom (장군의 수염 A General’s Beard) into a screenplay won the Grand Bell Award for Best Screenplay.
Reference
[1] Baek Mun-im and Song Tae-uk et al., Reunesangseuin Kim Seungok (Kim Seungok, the Renaissance Man), Aelpi, 2005, pp. 25-29.
