Kim Ae-ran (born 1980) is a South Korean writer.
1. Life
Kim was born in Incheon and grew up in Seosan, South Chungcheong Province. She studied playwriting at Korea National University of Arts. Kim made her literary debut in 2003 with the short story "Nokeuhaji anneun jip" (노크하지 않는 집 No Knocking in This House), which won the Daesan Literary Award and was subsequently published in the spring issue of the quarterly Changbi the same year.
Next, her short story collection, Dallyeora abi (달려라 아비 Run, Daddy, Run) entered the spotlight, earning her the Hankook Ilbo Literary Award in 2005. Twenty-five years old at the time of the award, Kim was the youngest award winner ever recorded, which was all the more unprecedented as she was also a new writer who had not yet published any short story collections. In 2008, her short story "Kaljaguk" (칼자국 Knife Marks) won the Lee Hyoseok Literary Award. Likewise, she was the youngest to ever be awarded this prize.
Kim Ae-ran has authored four short story collections, most recently Bakkateun yeoreum (바깥은 여름 Summer Outside), an essay collection, Itgi joeun ireum (잊기 좋은 이름 A Good Name to Forget), and a novel, Dugeundugeun naeinsaeng (두근두근 내인생 My Brilliant Life). Her short story "Naneun pyeonuijeome ganda" (나는 편의점에 간다 I Go to the Convenience Store), shortlisted for the 2004 Yi Sang Literary Award, received the Prix de l'Inaperçu in France in 2014.
2. Writing
Kim's stories feature young people in their 20s who have moved up to Seoul from other parts of the country. After industrialization and urbanization began in earnest in the 1960s, Korean literature frequently dealt with the subject of young people who turned their backs on their hometowns to come to Seoul. However, though young people continued to move to the capital after the new millennium, literary interest in their stories began to decrease. Because Kim spent most of her childhood growing up in a rural village called Seosan and only began living in Seoul in her 20s, she imbues the lives of the characters in her stories with a strong sense of realism. Her debut work, "Nokeuhaji anneun jip," a short story published in 2003, is about five women living in five separate rooms in a boarding house, where the rooms are tiny and close together.
Kim originally studied playwriting in college, and perhaps for that reason her stories reveal an unusual interest in small, run-down spaces. The short story "Seongtanteukseon" (성탄특선 Christmas Special) takes place in a run-down inn, while "Dallyeora abi" and "Dodohan saenghwal" (도도한 생활 Happy Life) are set in half-basement rooms. "I Go to the Convenience Store" features the intensively capitalistic space of a convenience store, and the backdrop of "Seukai kongkong" (스카이 콩콩 Sky Kong Kong) is a rooftop room in a small provincial city. Her humorous depiction of the people who live in these spaces evokes a rich pathos.
Her first novel, My Brilliant Life, translated into English in 2021, is a touching story of a 17-year-old boy with progeria, a disease that causes rapid aging; he prepares to bid farewell to his thirty-something parents, who had him when they were teenagers. It was a bestseller that was adapted into a film of the same name in 2014.
