Hwang Sun-Won (March 26, 1915 – September 14, 2000) was a Korean short story writer, novelist, and poet.
1. Life
Hwang Sun-Won was born in 1915 in Taedong, South Pyongan, in modern-day North Korea. Hwang made his literary debut as a middle school student with the publication in 1931 of his poems `Naui Kkum` (나의 꿈 My Dream) and `Adeura Museowo Malla` (아들아 무서워 말라 Fear Not, My Son) in the magazine Donggwang. In November 1934, he published his first poetry collection, Bangga (방가 Wayward Songs). Hwang graduated from Waseda University in Japan in 1939 with a degree in English literature. During his time at Waseda, he founded a theater group called Tokyo Students’ Group for the Arts along with fellow students Lee Haerang and Kim Dongwon. Following the division of Korea he lived in the South, becoming a professor at Kyunghee University.
2. Writing
Hwang Sun-Won published his first story, `Georiui Busa` (거리의 부사 Adverbs of the Streets), while a student at Waseda University in 1937. He continued writing well into the 1980s. During his long literary career, Hwang observed firsthand the suffering of ordinary Koreans under many different forms of oppression: colonialism, ideological strife, Korean War, industrialization, military dictatorships. What he sought to capture was the resilience of the Korean spirit even in times of adversity, rather than the adversity itself, and the discovery of love and goodwill in the most unlikely of circumstances. Although he wrote many volumes of poetry and eight novels, Hwang achieved his greatest acclaim as a master of the short story, which was regarded as the premiere literary genre through most of the twentieth century in Korea. Hwang was noted, particularly early in his career, for refusing to write in Japanese (Yom Sang-seop was another example of this stance). Hwang is the author of some of the best-known short stories in the modern Korean literary canon, including `Byeol` (별 The Stars), `Hwang Noin` (황 노인 Old Man Hwang), `Dok Jinneun Neulgeuni` (독 짓는 늙은이 The Old Potter), `Sonagi ` (소나기 Rain Shower), and `Hak` (학 Cranes). In `Cranes,` for example, two childhood friends now on opposite sides of the ideological divide find a way to rediscover their love for each other. `Rain Shower,` perhaps his best known story, highlights the pathos and beauty of love between two children. Children, in fact, often appear in Hwang Sun-Won’s short stories as vessels of purity. `Neup` (늪 The Swamp) and `The Stars` also manifest concern with the ephemerality of childhood. Hwang began writing novels in the 1950s, his most successful being Namudeul Bitare Seoda (나무들 비탈에 서다 Trees on a Slope), which depicts the lives of three soldiers during the Korean War. Irwol 일월 Sunlight, Moonlight) depicts the lives of members of the former untouchable class in urban Seoul. Umjigineun Seong (움직이는 성 The Moving Fortress) depicts the complex and problematic synthesis of Western and indigenous cultures in rapidly modernizing Korea. It is also one of the few depictions in fiction of gender roles in Korean shamanism.
