Kim Keum Hee debuted in 2009 with the short story “Your Document,” which won the Hankook Ilbo Literary Award. She has published one novel, Kyung-ae’s Heart, and two short story collections, Sentimentality Only Lasts So Long and Too Bright Outside for Love. She has won the Sin Dong-yup Prize for Literature, the Munhakdongne Young Writers’ Award, and the Hyundae Literary Award. The Japanese translation of Too Bright Outside for Love was published by Shobunsha in 2018.
1. Life
Kim Keum Hee was born in Busan, South Korea on October 10, 1979. Her family soon moved to Incheon, where she spent most of her childhood. She lived near a lumber yard on the outskirts of the city. The suburban landscape of Incheon features heavily in her debut work Sentimenteoldo haruiteul (센티멘털도 하루이틀 Sentimentality Works Only for a Day or Two). With both her parents working, she was often left home alone during her childhood. According to an interview, she began writing fiction to cope with years of pent-up loneliness and anger.
In 1998, Kim enrolled in the Korean literature program at Inha University. Kim recalls being “a Korean literature nerd who loved fiction and only wanted to write fiction.” Upon graduation, she joined a publisher as an editor. She perceived both social injustices and opportunities for social solidarity during her tenure at the publisher. In particular, she was frustrated at the company’s heavy-handed behavior toward its employees, treating salary payments as a charitable act rather than fair compensation for their work. This was how, she believed, the company forced workers into submission. At the same time, however, she met good colleagues and observed a strong bond between workers.
Kim won the Korea Times New Writer’s Contest in 2009, marking her literary debut. She has penned two short story collections to date. She is the winner of the 6th, 7th, and 8th Munhakdongne Young Writers' Award, 33rd Sin Dong-yup Prize for Literature, and 62nd Hyundae Literary Award. Her second short story collection Neomu hannajeui yeonae (너무 한낮의 연애 Too Bright Outside for Love), published in May 2016, is already on its tenth edition as of April 2017 due to its high popularity among Korean readers.
2. Writing
A common theme in Kim Keum Hee’s works is a throwback to old things. Unlike many of her Korean contemporaries, Kim is not interested in the rigidity lying beneath a seemingly flexible social order nor the despair over a life with no prospects. She tends to avoid employing powerful aesthetics or offering escapism in response to social injustices. She focuses on accepting the past as it is. Rather than rejecting frustrating realities or running away from them, her characters take ownership of who they are and their situation.
Kim restores the values of old or forgotten things. Many of the short stories in her debut work Sentimenteoldo haruiteul (센티멘털도 하루이틀 Sentimentality Works Only for a Day or Two) are about fathers who were heroes of a previous generation but now have no place to stand. For example, “Neoui dokyumeonteu” (너의 도큐먼트 Your Document) is about a woman who goes around town holding a map to look for her runaway father. “Aideul” (아이들 Children) is also about a woman’s journey to understand the lives of her parents who worked all their lives to realize their middle-class dream.
Although Kim has written fewer stories about fathers since her first book, her works still show sympathy with the old. “Jojunggyuneui segye” (조중균의 세계 The World of Jo Jung-gyun) is a short story about the anonymous poets of a bygone era who resisted South Korea’s former authoritarian government, and “Sesilia” (세실리아 Cecilia) recounts the past of a rape victim and social outcast.
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