Lee Dong-ha (born 1942) is a South Korean novelist.
1. Life
Lee Dong-ha was born in Osaka, Japan and moved to Korea with his family after Korea's liberation from the Japanese. There, he grew up in Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang Province. He studied creative writing at Seorabeol College of Arts and received a graduate degree in Korean literature from Konkuk University.
Lee made his literary debut in 1966, winning the Seoul Shinmun New Writer's Contest with his story "Jeonjaenggwa daramjwi" (전쟁과 다람쥐 War and Squirrel). The following year, he won the New Writer's Contest sponsored by the government's Department of Public Relations with his short story "Gyeoul bidulgi" (겨울 비둘기), later published as "Indong" (인동 Enduring Winter). That same year, his novel Uulhan gwihyang (우울한 귀향 Melancholy Homecoming) won the first Hyundae Munhak Novel Contest. Since then, he has published five novels including Jangnangam dosi (장난감 도시 Toy City) and Dosiui neup (도시의 늪 City Swamp) and around 100 short stories, collected in such volumes as Morae (모래 Sand), Barameui jip (바람의 집 The House of Wind), Pongnyeok yeongu (폭력 연수 Study of Violence), and Munapeseo (문 앞에서 In Front of the Door).
Lee taught creative writing at Mokpo University and Chung-Ang University for nearly thirty years. He is the recipient of the Korean Fiction Award, the Korean Literary Writer Award, the Hyundae Munhak Literary Award, and the Oh Yeong-su Literature Award.
2. Writing
Lee Dong-ha's early works focus on the damage done to a nation that has endured the trauma of internecine strife and division by forces that were outside of its control. Even when economic success comes, it cannot overcome that trauma and the inevitable dissolution of thousands of years of tradition. His first novel and one of his best-known works, Uulhan gwihyang, follows the story of a young writer returning to his hometown from a miserable existence in Seoul, coming to terms with the violence of the Korean War that still haunts him from his childhood.
In the 1970s, while working for literary magazines and the Konkuk university paper, Lee released such works as Morae and Dosiui neup. Unlike his early writing, which dealt with the suffering caused by war, his works at this time mostly focused on the psychology of office workers going about their mundane lines in the city.
In the 1980s, he released works on the theme of violence such as Toy City and Pongnyeok yeongu, a work that meticulously observed and expressed the lives of individuals placed in violent situations of war and dictatorship. Lee's novels are characterized by open endings in which the author does not criticize or intervene actively, leaving the reader to decide.
