Pak seongwon
박성원
Park Seongwon is a significant writer of the ‘Moonji’ school, which is one of the two major schools of writing that represents Korean Literature. Park Seongwon began his literary career by publishing a short story “Yuseo” (유서 The Will) in Literature and Society in 1994. He has mainly written fiction where he carefully builds his plots, and lays out a narrative that evokes the image of well trained actors performing on the stage. Park Seongwon carefully examines the gap between the prejudiced perspectives of the subject looking at the object as well as that of the object, and the actual object. Through this inevitable crack, he explains the society we live in and the lives we lead.
Another special characteristic of Park Seongwon’s fiction is that, as he has expressed in many interviews, he takes inspirations from Western pop music, particularly from 1960s~70s rock music, and uses them as if they are the story’s original soundtrack. In his first work “Haetteuneun jib” (해뜨는 집 The House of the Rising Sun) used The House of the Rising Sun by the The Animals. His 2012 work “Gobaek” (고백 Confession) used Daydream by Wallace Collection, and “Deoreo-un ne-insaeng” (더러운 네 인생 Your Dirty Life) used Anthem by Deep Purple. He uses the songs in such way in his fiction in order to clarify the theme.
