Baek Sin-ae (1908-1939) was a Korean writer.

1. Life

Baek Sin-ae was born to a wealthy family in Yeongcheon, North Gyeongsang Province. She did not attend school in her childhood due to her conservative father. In 1922, at the age of 15, she changed her name and her birth year to attend school secretly. After graduation, she taught at Yeongcheon Primary School while actively participating in the women’s movement by organizing a regional women’s association. After a year she moved to Seoul, where she became a member of several socialist women’s movement organizations.

In 1927, she stowed away to Vladivostok and traveled in Siberia. On her return, she was arrested by the Japanese police at the Korea-China border and was severely tortured. She returned to her hometown and continued the women’s movement in the region.

In January 1929, she made her literary debut under the pen name Park Gye-hwa when her short story "Na-ui eomeoni" (나의 어머니 My Mother) won the Chosun Ilbo New Writer's Contest. Immediately after, she left for Japan to study literature and theater at Nihon University College of Art. She continued her studies while working part-time at a café and as a maid, and even worked as an actress.

In 1931, Baek returned to her hometown and married Lee Geun-chae, who was managing her father’s business, in 1933. After her marriage she began writing in earnest. Starting with "Kkeoraei" (꺼래이 Korey), which reflected her travels in Russia, she published several short stories and essays. In 1938, she divorced after separation, and died of pancreatic cancer in 1939. Despite her divorce and illness, Baek showed a strong desire for creativity until her final days.

In 2008, the Baek Sin-ae Memorial Association was organized to commemorate the 100th anniversary of her birth. Since then the association has been holding the Baek Sin-ae Literary Festival in her hometown, Yeongcheon, and presenting the Baek Sin-ae Literary Award.

2. Writing

Along with such writers as Park Hwa-seong and Kang Kyung-ae, Baek Sin-ae is one of the leading female writers of the 1930s.

Baek did not write for a long period. She published her work intensively for five years from 1934. Her works can be divided into three categories: works that reveal the reality of an impoverished colonial period, works that express women’s inner psyche in a dynamic way, and works on the depravity and deterioration of the middle class in her time.

Baek’s works that reveal the destitute reality of the Korean people are "Jeokbin" (적빈 Poverty) and "Kkeoraei." "Jeokbin" depicts the motherhood of an elderly woman suffering from extreme poverty in rural Korea. On behalf of her violent and incompetent gambler son, the protagonist prepares food for her daughter-in-law, who is about to give birth. The scene in which she holds herself back from defecating to endure hunger clearly reveals the reality of the lower class, where human dignity has disappeared and survival has become the only goal in life. "Kkeoraei," which reflects Baek’s experience of traveling in Siberia, depicts the reality of Koreans in Russia. "Kkeoraei" or "Korey" is a derogatory term used by Russians to refer to Koreans. As the title suggests, this short story paints a picture of the suffering of colonial Koreans in Siberia but also shows a world beyond nationalism by introducing Russian soldiers and a Chinese man named Kuli.

Various aspects of women’s inner psyche are captured in Baek Sin-ae’s works. "Na-ui eomeoni" and "Nago" (낙오 Left Behind) are stories that depict the internal and external conflicts experienced by a woman who yearns for self-realization within a feudal social structure. Her later work "Honmyeong-eseo" (혼명에서 From Darkness) tells the story of a woman’s journey to find herself after divorce, while "Gwanginsugi" (광인수기 Records of a Mad Woman) features a woman who speaks crazed words due to her husband’s extramarital affair. Her posthumous work "Areumdaun noeul" (아름다운 노을 Beautiful Sunset) deals with an unconventional topic for the time. Featuring a female protagonist who is sexually attracted to a boy her son’s age, this story focuses on female desires outside the typical frame of a woman’s life that revolves around marriage, childbirth, and childrearing.

Baek Sin-ae’s works are largely interpreted from two perspectives. One is with literary realism, as "Jeokbin" and "Kkeoraei" present the destitute realities of the times. However, her works are at times considered abstract and conceptual, as the author herself has not experienced poverty or motherhood. The other perspective is with women’s literature. Mainly her works are evaluated as showing women’s truths and desires in a refracted manner, and criticizing male intellectuals’ false consciousness and internal division from a feminine perspective.