Kim Hoon was born in 1948. His extensive journalism career started in 1973 at The Hankook Ilbo and stretched through the years at The Sisa Press, The Kookmin Ilbo, and The Hankyoreh. He made his literary debut well past the age of 40, but has received numerous awards since: the Dongin Literary Award in 2001 for his novel Song of the Sword; the Yi Sang Literary Award in 2004 for his short story “Cremation”; the Hwang Sun-won Literary Award in 2005 for his short story “My Sister’s Menopause”; and the Daesan Literary Award in 2007 for his novel Fortress on Mt. Namhan.
1. Life
Kim was born in Seoul in 1948. After graduating from Whimoon High School, Kim entered Korea University in 1966, but did not graduate due to financial difficulties. He joined the Hankook Ilbo as a journalist in 1973 and went on to write for the Sisa Ilbo, the Kookmin Ilbo, and the Hankyoreh.
Kim made his debut as a novelist at the age of forty-seven, serializing Bitsalmunuitogiui chueok (빗살무늬토기의 추억 Memories of Earthenware with Comb Teeth Pattern) from 1994 to 1995 in the quarterly Munhakdongne. His second novel and winner of the prestigious Dong-in Literary Award, Karui norae (칼의 노래 Song of the Sword), was a literary sensation and elevated him into one of the most recognized names in Korean literature, selling over a million copies. Two years later in 2003, Kim's reputation as a writer was affirmed when his first published short story, "Hwajang" (화장 Cremation), was chosen as the winner of Yi Sang Literary Award. Kim is also the recipient of the Hwang Sun-won Literary Award for his short story "Eonniui pyegyeong" (언니의 폐경 My Sister’s Menopause) and the Daesan Literary Award for his novel Namhansanseong (남한산성 Fortress on Mt. Namhan).
Kim worked as a journalist for 20 years before becoming a writer and is well known for refusing to use anything but a pencil when he writes: “When I write with pencils, I feel that my body is propelling the writing forward. I am incapable of writing a single line without this feeling.”[1] He is also an avid cyclist who does not have a driver's license and has written a series of essays on his bicycle travels across the south of the Korean peninsula.
2. Writing
Though he became a fiction writer at a relatively late age, Kim writes with flair and the dexterity of a seasoned novelist. Grounded in his journalistic background, his writing style is polished and unsentimental, and Kim crafts his sentences masterfully to infuse lyrical rhythm to his work without sacrificing clarity and poise. His job as a journalist, which required him to rush to the scenes of disaster, has also given him an insight into the psychology of people in extreme circumstances.
Kim's ability to discern pertinent details and moments of significance in the chaos of life-or-death situations, which he perfected in his line of work as a reporter, can be observed in his first novel, Memories of Bitsalmunuitogiui chueok. Written in the form of a detective story involving a mysterious death of a firefighter, the novel presents a palpably real portrait of the battle with raging fire, and investigates the intensity of human emotions in dire circumstances with acuity, subtlety and insight. In his second novel Karui norae, Kim gives us a powerful picture of Admiral Yi Sun-sin, not just as a war hero but as an ordinary man facing extraordinary circumstances and struggling with the complexity of his own interior landscape. Kim's third novel, Hyeonui norae (현의 노래 Song of Strings) focuses on the life of the renowned musician Ureuk who lived more than fifteen hundred years ago during the Silla period.
Namhansanseong, another bestseller of Kim's that has sold over a million copies, is based on the Second Manchu invasion of Korea in 1636, when King Injo of Joseon took refuge in Namhansanseong fortress in an ill-fated attempt to defy the rule of the Manchu Qing emperor Hong Taiji. The novel was adapted into a musical in 2009 and a film in 2017 under the title The Fortress, directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk, creator of the Squid Game series.
Reference
[1] Korea Literature Now. Vol.2, Winter 2008. https://kln.or.kr/frames/interviewsView.do?bbsIdx=1324
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