Yun Hu-myong (born 1946) is a South Korean writer.
1. Life
Yun Hu-myong was born Yun Sang-gyu in Gangneung, Gangwon Province. He received his bachelor's degree in philosophy from Yonsei University. Yun made his literary debut as a poet in 1967, while still a student, winning the Kyunghyang Sinmun New Writer's Contest with his poem "Binghaui sae" (빙하의 새 Glacial Bird). His first collection of poems, Myeonggung (명궁 Expert Archer), was published in 1977.
Yun made his literary debut as a novelist in 1979, winning the Hankook Ilbo New Writer's Contest with his short story "Sanyeok" (산역 Burial). His best known works include Dunhwangui sarang (둔황의 사랑 The Love of Don Juan), first published as a series of interconnected stories and republished as a novel in 2005, Yeou sanyang (여우 사냥 The Fox Hunt), and Byeolkkaji uriga (별까지 우리가 We to the Stars). He is the recipient of the Hyundae Literary Award and the Yi Sang Literary Award, among others.
2. Writing
Although he is one of the major Korean writers of the 1980s, Yun's fiction maintains some distance from the dominant trend in Korean fiction from that era—the concern with realism as an effective literary tool in rendering contemporary social situations. Instead, what supports Yun's fictional world are individual desire and the power of fantasy. The archetypal situation in Yun's works is that of a man suffering from a sense of ontological lack; deadened by routines of daily life, he immerses himself in fantasy or travel in order to secure what life in the real world has denied him—meaning of existence and genuine engagement with another human being. Often this search hinges on the protagonist's ardent yearning for a woman. The fantasy cannot last, but it is the ceaseless movement away from the vulgar reality that has the potential to resurrect the self from existential insecurity, loneliness, or despair. Such romantic individualism is heightened by the sensitive, lyrical style of writing that reflects Yun's poetic sensibilities.
Yun's Hayan bae (하얀 배 White Ship), which won the Yi Sang Literary Award in 1995, explores the Korean diaspora in Central Asia. The first-person narrator, a journalist, is inspired to visit Kazakhstan after reading an article. He travels through Almaty and reaches Ushtobe, a small city where Koreans who were forcibly relocated from various places in eastern Russia first arrived in 1937. At the Korean school he learns that Luda and her older brother Vitali have relocated to live by Lake Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan, and continues his journey. Along the way, he meets Vitali’s friend Mikhail who tells him about the novella The White Ship by Kyrgyz author Chinghiz Aitmatov. When the protagonist arrives at Issyk-Kul after many complications, he sees the Tian Shan Mountains covered with snow reflected on the lake and meets Luda under the shade of a cypress tree. What he sees there is a white snow-covered mountain and a woman named Luda, but he also finds the history of the Korean people who had to live far from home. [1]
Reference
[1] Korean Literature Now. Vol.18, Winer 2012. https://kln.or.kr/lines/essaysView.do?bbsIdx=1550
