Gong Ji-Young (born 1963) is a South Korean novelist.
1. Life
Gong Ji-Young was born in Seoul in 1963. She studied English literature at Yonsei University. Her debut short story, "Dongteuneun saebyeok" (동트는 새벽 Breaking Dawn), published in the quarterly Changbi in 1988 and conceived while being held in jail, was a direct result of her involvement in the student and labor movements of that era. Gong's earlier works chronicle the 1980s and the students who like the author herself came of age during that decade of violent protest and political upheaval in South Korea. Since then, she has published 13 novels, four short story collections, and 13 essay collections.
Gong Ji-Young has received the Amnesty International Special Media Award, Catholic Literature Award, and the Yi Sang Literary Award. Her best-known works include Urideurui haengbokan sigan (우리들의 행복한 시간 Our Happy Time), Dogani (도가니 The Crucible), and Bongsuni eonni (봉순이 언니 My Sister Bongsoon). Her works have sold over than 10 million copies in South Korea alone. Our Happy Time, adapted into the film Maundy Thursday in 2006, was a box office success with more than 4 million viewers. Her 2009 novel The Crucible, adapted into the film Silenced in 2011, was also seen by over 4.6 million viewers.
2. Writing
Gong has been considered a feminist writer by many, particularly since, in many of her works, the subject of women's struggle and that of labor movement conflate in characters that must face the twin task of building a new identity for themselves after the labor movement and finding a place for themselves in a male-dominated society.
Her most representative work is Musoui ppulcheoreom honjaseo gara (무소의 뿔처럼 혼자서 가라 Go Alone Like a Rhinoceros Horn), published in 1993. The novel deals—through the stories of three women in their 30s who were friends in college, and who opt for divorce or suicide after periods of serious domestic discord and violence—with the oppressive and unequal patriarchal institution of family in Korean society. The work is deemed to have played a vital role in establishing feminist discourse as one of the major trends of Korean literature in the 90s. Published hand in hand in 1994, Godeungeo (고등어 Mackerel), the novel, and Ingane daehan yeui (인간에 대한 예의 Respect for Human Beings), a short story collection, contributed to the coinage of the new term, “reminiscence literature.” The two novels were labeled “reminiscence literature” for their reminiscence of the 1980s, in which hope and passion were still alive in the student movement generation, to the 1990s, in which the prospect of revolution disappeared due to the collapse of the socialist Eastern European bloc.
In the late 1990s, Gong continued to devote her attention to the issue of women and laborers, as well as expanding her creative energy to include the underprivileged and discriminated members of Korean society. In her 1998 novel, My Sister Bongsoon, Gong portrayed the life of a woman in the 1960s. Moving on to the 2000s, Gong's bestselling novel Our Happy Time, about the relationship between a suicidal woman from a privileged background and a man on death row, addresses the issue of capital punishment. Her autobiographical novel, Jeulgeoun naui jip (즐거운 나의 집 There's No Place Like Home), depicts the reality of a divorcee's household.
In a 2014 interview with the Guardian, asked whether literature can change opinions and lives, Gong replied, "Yes, it changed my life. Through literature, people can become familiarised with others. When I read about ordinary English life—let's say about having tea with marmalade—it brings me closer… My novel The Crucible was based on a case of deaf children who were sexually abused by their principal and teachers. I wrote the novel to make sure the children recovered their dignity and the perpetrators were prosecuted. It led to the Korean government passing the "Crucible law."[1]
Reference
[1] The Guardian, 22 June, 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/22/gong-ji-young-death-motivates-life
