Yun I-hyeong (born in 1976) is a South Korean novelist. She enjoyed using the settings of Genre fiction [1] and published many novels about pop culture. While dealing with feminism and minority issues, she inquired into the mainstream and normality. She won the Lineage Literature Award (2014) and the Yi Sang Literary Award (2019).
1. Life
Yun was born in Seoul in 1976. She is the daughter of the “omnidirectional artist” Lee Ze-ha who worked in various areas, including poetry, novel and art. [2] Her first novel was a derivative work based on the animation The Mysterious Cities of Gold. She entered Yonsei University in 1995, majoring in English literature. When she was in college, she was active in a PC communications club and spent time online rather than offline. In 1998, she contributed a poem to a university newspaper contest and won an award. After graduating from college in 1999, she worked in the film industry, and began writing novels in 2004 by taking classes on novel creation at the Hankyoreh Culture Center. [3] Since she was young, she has enjoyed fairy tales and fantasy novels [4], and loved so much the series such as Robotdaebaekgwa (로봇대백과 Robot Encyclopedia) and Goesudaebaekgwa (괴수대백과 Monster Encyclopedia), which made Japanese animations and special filming into readable content, that she rattled them off with ease as if to learn them by heart. [5] Since early 2000, she has been into fantasy and science fiction novels. She also loved the author Lee Yeongdo’s fantasy novel, Deuraegon raja (드래곤 라자 Dragon Raja). Yun wanted to write novels such as Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings, so she took a writing class on science fiction and made a club for joint review in 2008. She gets a lot of inspiration for the creation of novels from SF literature. [6] Among SF writers, she likes Robert A. Heinline and thinks of Ursula K. Le Gwin's The Dispossessed as a perfect piece. [7]
She debuted as a novelist in 2005 by winning the Joong Ang New Writer Award with her short story “Geomeun bulgasari” (검은 불가사리 Black Starfish). [8] In 2007, she published the first short story collection Seseul wihan walcheu (셋을 위한 왈츠 Waltz for Three). She lost confidence as a novelist in 2009, unable to write and developing aphasia. [9] Because of the murder at Gangnam Station in 2016, she became aware of women's issues, defining herself as a "female writer who entered feminism belatedly," and determined to do a different kind of literature than before. [10] She was awarded the 2019 Yi Sang Literary Award for her short story “Geudeurui cheon beonjjaewa du beonjjae goyangi” (그들의 첫 번째와 두 번째 고양이 Their First and Second Cats).
2. Writing
Genre Fiction
In Yun’s novels, the settings of genre fiction that belong to the nonmainstream in modern literature make frequent appearances. SF elements came into the picture from “Black Starfish” with which she debuted and “Piui iryoil” (피의 일요일 Bloody Sunday) borrowed the worldview of the online game World of Warcraft. The acclaimed medium-length novel Keun neukdae parang (큰 늑대 파랑 The Big Wolf, Blue) is set in zombie apocalypse. “Daeni” (대니 Danny) deals with the friendship between a grandmother who takes care of her grandson alone and “Danny”, an Android childcare robot. Yun I-hyeong utilizes these materials as an effective device to call attention to the institutionality and violence of modern technological civilization, [11] rather than simply using them as unfamiliar and mysterious stories. [12]
Queer
“Ruka” (루카 Luka), which won the 2014 the Lineage Literature Award, is about the homosexual “Ttalgi” meeting the father of his ex-lover “Luka.” Luka's father is a pastor with a homophobic attitude. Luka shows the personal and social plight sexual minorities experience as a member of society. The protagonist Seo-yeong of Seollang (설랑 Talking Wolf), published by a romance publisher, is a novelist and bisexual werewolf. Seo-yeong suffers from her monstrous nature and admits her own various identities as she becomes the lesbian Soun’s lover.
Feminism
Yun has started to think deeply about feminism since 2016. She was more mindful of her female readers than ever before and tried to incorporate women's issues into her work. [13] As she got married and gave birth to a baby, materials such as marriage, pregnancy and childcare have been given more weight than before. The short story “Their First and Second Cats”, which won the Yi Sang Literary Award in 2019, deals with the process of a man and a woman getting married, having children and getting divorced. They concede that what they had to give up in order to maintain a marriage is themselves and decide on their divorce. While addressing the problems of the patriarchal marriage system, the novel was regarded as a masterpiece that secured a meta view of the marriage system without being stuck in a confrontation between genders. [14]
Reference
1) It refers to literature that conforms to the conventions of a certain genre, represented
by mystery, fantasy, SF, romance and martial arts novels.
[Daum Encyclopedia]
https://100.daum.net/encyclopedia/view/b18j3005n14
2) Yun I-hyeong's real name is Lee Seul. The father-daughter relationship with Lee Je-
ha came to light after receiving the Joong Ang New Writer Award.
Son Min-ho, “Keeping an eye on the new writer Yun I-hyeong,” Joongang Ilbo, Oct. 30, 2007 https://news.joins.com/article/2930531
3) Yun I-hyeong, Naui munhakjeong jaseojeon (My Literary Autobiography), (2019 the
43rd annual Yi Sang Literary Award winner: Their First and Second Cats), Literature & Thought, 2019, page 136-141
4) Sin Jun-bong, “Yun I-hyeong, A versatile author, embraces SF, fantasy and realism,”
Joongang Current Affairs Magazine, 306, 2019
http://jmagazine.joins.com/monthly/view/327637
5) Channel Yes, “Yun I-hyeong said, ‘reading is breaking the insular world’,” Channel
Yes, Oct. 07, 2019
http://ch.yes24.com/Article/View/39999
6) Son Bo-mi, Yun I-hyeong, (Until I become myself) AXT, pages 23, 59
Yun I-hyeong, Naui munhakjeong jaseojeon (My Literary Autobiography), (2019 the
43rd annual Yi Sang Literary Award winner: Their First and Second Cats), Literature & Thought, 2019, page 142
7) Son Bo-mi, Yun I-hyeong, (Until I become myself), ibid., pages 57-59
8) She contributed a total of eight novels under the penname “Jiha.”
Son Min-ho, “Keeping an eye on the new writer Yun I-hyeong,” Joongang Ilbo, Oct. 30, 2007 https://news.joins.com/article/2930531
9) Yun I-hyeong, (My Literary Autobiography), ibid., page 142
10) Lee Yeong-gyeong, “’Literature is not above human rights’, said Yun I-hyeong, ‘a
feminist writer’ to find answers to writing as a woman,” Kyunghyang Shinmun, Jan. 22, 2019
http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?artid=201901221311001&code=960205
11) Jin Seon, (Novelist Yun I-hyeong said, “I often imagine myself living as a
homosexual.”), (Seoul Queer Culture Festival Website), April 22, 2016
http://sqcf.org/blog/170502
12) (The introduction of the works of the 5th annual Lineage Literature Award) (Moonji
Website) http://moonji.com/book/9328/
13) Sin Yeon-seon, (Yun I-hyeong, “A desire to become connected with others”),
Channel Yes, Sep. 16, 2019 http://ch.yes24.com/Article/View/39817
Lee Yeong-gyeong, ibid.
http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?art_id=201901221311001
14) So Yeong-hyeon, (Their First and Second Cats and Yun I-hyeong’s works –
reasoning for a better world), (2019 the 43rd annual Yi Sang Literary Award winner: Their First and Second Cats), Literature & Thought, 2019, pages 159-163
