Kim Yu-jeong (11 January 1908 – 29 March 1937) was a Korean novelist.
1. Life
Kim Yu-jeong was born in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province. He was the son of a wealthy landowner. The family fortunes, however, were squandered away by his older brother, and Kim spent much of his adolescent and adult life in poverty. After graduating Whimoon High School, Kim attended Yonhi College, now Yonsei University, in Seoul.
His first stories to appear in print were "Sangol nageune" (산골나그네 Wanderer Among the Hills) in the March 1933 issue of Jeilseon, and "Chonggakgwa maengkkongi" (총각과 맹꽁이 The Bachelor and the Singing Frogs) in the September issue of Sinyeoseong the same year. In 1935 Kim made his literary debut with the selection of "Sonakbi" (소낙비 Downpour) by the Chosun Ilbo, and "Nodaji" (노다지 Bonanza) by the Joseon Jungang Ilbo. The same year, he became a member of the literary coterie, the Circle of Nine (구인회), which included such prominent poets and fiction writers as Chong Chi-Yong and Yi Sang. Kim then went on to publish prolifically during the two short years before his death in 1937, leaving behind more than 30 novels and 10 essays, and opening up a new horizon in Korean literature. He died of pulmonary tuberculosis on March 29, 1937.
2. Writing
Kim Yu-jeong’s stories portray, with a unique, folksy sense of humor, everyday people living out hardscrabble lives against the bleak backdrop of rural Korea. Kim’s prose, with its liberal use of lively onomatopoeia, rustic dialect, and homespun colloquialisms, lends great animation to his subjects, providing us with vitality-filled sketches of the impoverished and miserable lives lived by the lowest classes in rural villages under Japanese colonial rule. The particular significance of Kim’s stories within Korean literature, however, comes from the consistent sensitivity of feeling which they evince in their telling.
The prototypical Kim Yu-jeong protagonist might be the narrator of "Bom bom" (봄봄 Spring, Spring), a simpleton who is slow to realize that his wily future father-in-law is exploiting his labor, or the husband in "Ttaengbyeot" (땡볕 The Heat of the Sun), too ignorant to know that his wife's illness is actually due to an overgrown baby in her womb. Bawdy dialogue and colloquial slang heighten the comic potential of such situations, but an undercurrent of sadness suggests the wretchedness of poverty-stricken lives. Embedded within Kim Yu-jeong's lyrical approach to nature and robust characterization of peasant wholesomeness are indirect references to questions of class. Conflicts between tenants and middlemen, as well as the problem of absentee landlordism which rose sharply as a result of Japanese agricultural policy hint at the dark and bleak reality of rural Korea in the 1930s.
Kim engages the structural contradictions of rural Korean society at a more explicit level in "Downpour" and "Manmubang" (만무방 Scoundrels). Both the husband in "Downpour" and the older brother in "Scoundrels" are dislocated farmers who must drift about after losing their tenancy. In an atmosphere of overwhelming hopelessness and despair, where back-breaking work only leads peasants deeper and deeper into debt, both characters turn to gambling in search of making a quick profit. The husband in "Downpour" encourages his wife's sexual union with a wealthy old man for money, and the older brother in "Scoundrels" parts with his wife and child altogether to find means of survival. The speculative spirit which extreme poverty fosters among peasants also manifests itself as gold fever in "Bonanza" and "Geum ttaneun kongbat" (금따는 콩밭 The Golden Bean Patch). Though most of his stories are sketches of rural communities in decline, Kim also turned his attention to the plight of the urban poor in such stories as "Ttaraji" (따라지 Wretched Lives).
