Hyeon Deok (1909-?) was a Korean novelist and children’s book writer.
1. Life
Hyeon Deok was born in Seoul in 1909. His family’s financial situation grew difficult during his childhood, which he spent being passed around relatives. He usually stayed at his uncle’s house in Daebudo Island, his experiences from which time are reflected in the short stories “Namsaengi” (남생이 Terrapin) and “Gyeongchip” (경칩 Coming of the Spring). In 1932, Hyeon’s work received honorable mention in the children’s story category in the Dong-a Ilbo New Writer’s Contest. After a long training period, he began his literary career when his short story “Namsaengi” won the Chosun Ilbo New Writer’s Contest in 1938. For about two years after his debut, Hyeon published works in fiction, children’s fiction, and young adult fiction. In 1940, he convalesced in Hwanghae-do due to tuberculosis. His health worsened, and when the Pacific War broke out, he stopped writing.
After the liberation, he gathered his previous works and published several collections of short stories, children’s fiction, and young adult fiction. During the Second Battle of Seoul, he defected to North Korea. He later published a short story collection titled Suhwagui nal (수확의 날 Harvest Day). Immediately after the truce in 1953, Hyeon Deok’s works were harshly criticized during the purge of writers from the Workers’ Party of South Korea. He is believed to have been classified as a member of Han Sorya’s faction and killed during a purge in 1962.
2. Writing
Hyeon Deok was a writer who portrayed the wretched lives of farmers and urban poor from the perspective of social criticism. Through the lives of farmers who have given up farming and left for the outskirts of cities yet are still unable to escape poverty, he painted a realistic portrait of colonial Korea’s deformed economic structure. Many of his works feature children as main characters, and he illustrated the corruption of cities through helpless intellectuals.
“Namsaengi” describes the poor and difficult lives and moral degradation of the people living in the quayside of Incheon through the eyes of an innocent boy named Noma. When Noma’s father collapses from overwork, Noma’s mother supports the family selling alcohol by the quay. The bedridden father is unhappy about the arrangement, but she does not listen to him and ends up bringing home a lover. Using an ill father or the death of a father, Hyeon depicts the depressing reality in which the father loses even the value of existence in a patriarchal system due to economic incompetence. However, Hyeon avoids a pessimistic ending by intersecting the death of Noma’s father and Noma’s growth.
Most of Hyeon Deok’s works are based on his own experiences, but they are praised for containing meticulous descriptions of the lives of the poor without becoming immersed in the self-consciousness of an intellectual. In that sense, he is a writer who belongs to the tradition and line of realist literature. In particular, he is considered one of the most representative writers from Incheon due to his delicate depiction of the Incheon quayside, where he spent most of his childhood. Hyeon’s works had a huge impact on children’s literature in Korea as well. His children’s books featuring Noma as the main character continue to be republished with a steady following even in the 2000s.
