Kim Il-gwang is a South Korean children's literature writer who started his literary ca-reer when his fairy tale was selected in the "Maeil Shinmun" New Writer Contest. Born in Pohang, he continues to reside in the same city. In Kim Il-gwang's fairy tales, one can observe a consciousness of the issues surrounding the destruction of nature within hu-man greed and indifference.
In works like "Ghost Whale" (2008) and "Gangchi, Gangchi from Dokdo" (2010), ani-mals sacrificed due to humans' indiscriminate exploitation take center stage. "Ghost Whale" is a piece based on the testimony of a real-life whaling captain, shedding light on the whaling practices that took place in Korea until the mid-1970s. The narrative format involves learning about the whaling through the captain's accounts, drawing at-tention to the sacrificed ghost whale. The story prompts reflection on the modern history of environmental destruction driven by development logic.
Similarly, "Gangchi, Gangchi from Dokdo" features the appearance of the sea lion Gangchi, which inhabits the East Sea with Dokdo at its center. Gangchi, a sea lion, fac-es extinction due to the merciless hunting by a Japanese fishing company during the Japanese occupation era, targeting its skin, oil, and meat. Even after liberation, the story depicts the disappearance of sea lions amid people's indifference. These works empha-size the consequences of human actions on the environment and call for reflection on the impact of modern development on nature.
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