Lee Jangwook (born 1968) is a South Korean poet, novelist, and critic.
1. Life
Lee Jangwook was born in 1968 in Seoul. He holds bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees in Russian literature from Korea University. Lee made his literary debut as a poet in 1994 winning the New Writer's Contest organized by Hyundae Munhak, in which a number of his poems were subsequently published. He made his debut as a fiction writer winning the Munhak Suchoep Award in 2005, which led to the publication of his first novel, Kallowa yukwaehan angmadeul (칼로와 유쾌한 악마들 Cheerful Devils of Callot). In 2008, he completed a residency at the University of Iowa's International Writing Program. Over the span of nearly 30 years, he has published five collections of poetry, three collections of short stories and two novels, including the widely acclaimed Cheongukboda natseon (천국보다 낯선 Stranger than Paradise). He has also translated Summer in Baden-Baden by Leonid Tsypkin.[1] Alongside his writing career, Lee has taught creative writing at Chosun University and now at Dongguk University, as well as serving as editor of the quarterly Changbi. He has written on contemporary poets such as Hwang Byeongseung, Kim Haengsuk and Kim Minjeong, as well as a monograph on Russian poetry entitled Hyeongmyeonggwa modeonijeum: reosiaui siwa munhak (혁명과 모더니즘: 러시아의 시와 문학 Revolution and Modernism: Russian Poetry and its Aesthetics). His poetry collection Jeongoui huimanggok (정오의 희망곡 Request Line at Noon) was published in English in 2016.
2. Writing
Many scholars have drawn parallels between Lee's poetry and his prose, some having gone so far as to describe Lee's works of fiction as an extension of his poetic endeavors. Lee, in other words, eschews objectivity and has the reader second-guess their beliefs about the events taking place in his work. In Cheongukboda natseon, for example, he has different characters recount their memories of the very same events, blurring the distinction between truth and fabrication. His poetry, too, has been said to defy straightforward reading. It is not so much his choice of words that gives his poetry an evasive air, but rather the way he strings words together. Using far from enigmatic language, he manages to create a poetic atmosphere in which the simplest of objects suddenly feel unfamiliar. Against the backdrop of this seemingly abstract poetic landscape, he makes the world's uncertainties ever so palpable. Describing the difference between the literary genres of poetry and fiction, Lee explains that, for him, poetry feels more akin to night while fiction feels more akin to day. However, this does not mean that he remains stuck in the dichotomized world described as "night and day" by the literary establishment. Rather, he focuses on the secret places that exist between the polar opposites of "outer layer" and "inner depths," "reality" and "fantasy," "conscious" and "unconscious," as if on the dusky borderline between night and day.
