Park Min-gyu (born 1968) is a South Korean writer.
1. Life
Park Min-gyu was born in Ulsan. He studied creative writing at Chung-Ang University. Park made his literary debut in 2003 with two widely acclaimed novels: Jiguyeongungjeonseol (지구영웅전설 Legends of the Earth’s Heroes) and Sammisyupeoseutajeuui majimak paenkeulleop (삼미슈퍼스타즈의 마지막 팬클럽 The Sammi Superstars' Last Fan Club), which earned him the Munhakdongne New Author Award and the Hankyoreh Literary Award, respectively. Since then, he has won the Lee Hyo-seok Literary Award for "Nureon gang bae han cheok" (누런 강 배 한 척 Boat on a Yellow River) and the Yi Sang Literary Award for "Achimui mun" (아침의 문 Morning's Door). Park has authored the short story collections Kaseutera (카스테라 Castella) and Deobeul (더블 Double), and the novels Pingpong (핑퐁 Ping-Pong) and Jugeun wangnyeoreul wihan pabanneu (죽은 왕녀를 위한 파반느 Pavane for a Dead Princess), published in English by Dalkey Archive in 2014.
2. Writing
Park Min-gyu is an author renowned for bringing about changes in the literary landscape of Korea in the 2000s through his original imagination and unconventional sentences. His novels are fraught with unusual characters, such as Superman and Wonder Woman, and bizarre incidents, such as a table tennis match between an ostracized middle school kid and an alien, with the fate of the earth at stake. A deeper look into his work, however, reveals the author’s sympathy and compassion for the weak and the marginalized in today’s society.[1]
In stories like "Geuncheo" (근처 Nearby) and "Nureon gang bae han cheok," he paints the pathos of the lonesome declining years of the elderly who die after having lived without resistance to a traditional way of life. Years ahead of the Avengers movies, Park gathered the icons of American popular culture together and novelized their stories in Jiguyeongungjeonseol. Then, by transposing the hero of martial arts novels to the modern age in "Jeol" (절 Garrulous, or Four Dragons) he symbolically showed how modern society enervates all human beings. Park painted a frightening picture of modern man, already turned into a monster by endless competition, using the road movie genre à la Mad Max. By using such kitschy imagination and subculture tropes, Park’s novels criticize the winner-take-all jungle that modern society has become. However, in Sammisyupeoseutajeuui majimak paenkeulleop, he maintains that we should lead a pleasant life in which people “don’t strive to hit a ball that is hard to hit or catch a ball that is hard to catch.”[2]
The characters of Park Min-gyu’s novels are addicted to Pac Man, obsessed with baseball, and captivated by superheroes. But the memories of popular culture in Park’s stories lurk in the margins. For example, the boss addicted to Pac Man actually becomes a video game character, and the baseball team disappears from the history of baseball after circling the margins. The Earth Heroes they look up to are nothing like the super
Reference
[1] Korean Literature Now. Vol. 6, Winter 2009. https://kln.or.kr/lines/reviewsView.do?bbsIdx=1318
[2] Korean Literature Now. Vol. 28, Summer 2015. https://kln.or.kr/lines/essaysView.do?bbsIdx=1502
[3] Korean Literature Now. Vol. 12, Summer 2011. https://kln.or.kr/lines/essaysView.do?bbsIdx=1562
