Gong Sun-Ok (born 1963) is a modern South Korean writer.
1. Life
Gong was born in a slash-and-burn farming community in Gokseong, South Jeolla Province. Her father, who abandoned the family early on, led a wandering existence in order to evade creditors, and her mother suffered from ill health. Gong entered Chonnam National University to study Korean literature in 1983 and was active in the student pro-democracy movement, but dropped out of school two years later. She then worked at a factory and as a bus attendant to make a living.
Destitute after her first marriage ended in divorce, Gong was forced to entrust her children to care and went to work in the kitchen of a local temple and then as a seamstress in Seoul. She began writing at this time and made her literary debut in 1991, publishing the novella Ssiatbul (씨앗불 Embers) in the quarterly Changbi. Her works include the short story collections Pieora suseonhwa (피어라 수선화 Bloom, Daffodils), Meotjin hansesang (멋진 한세상 Wonderful World), the novels Yuranggajok (유랑가족 Itinerant Family), Geu noraeneun eodiseo wasseulkka (그 노래는 어디서 왔을까 Where Did That Song Come From), and numerous essay collections. Gong is the recipient of the Shin Dong-yeop Creative Fund, the Manhae Literary Award, the Oh Yeong-su Literary Award, and the May 18th Literary Award, among others.
2. Writing
The Gwangju Uprising of May 1980, which Gong witnessed as a high school student, is a recurrent theme in her works. Many of her works revolve around the twin axis of the men traumatized by the Uprising and the women who must share their emotional burden. Ojirie dugo on seoreunsal (오지리에 두고 온 서른살 My Thirtieth Year Left Behind in Ojiri), a story of two men and their turbulent lives, features a man who suffers a mental breakdown every year in May and his wife who struggles to find hope in their bleak future together. The man's inability to overcome his trauma results in the eventual breakdown of their marriage.
Similarly, Ssiatbul concerns a woman whose husband was part of the Citizen's Defense Unit during the uprising. Her inability to fully empathize with his pain is at the heart of the conflict. The author's short stories "Mongmareun gyejeol" (목마른 계절 A Thirsty Season), "Nae saengui allibai" (내 생의 알리바이 Alibi for the Next Season) and the novel Naega gajang yeppeosseul ttae (내가 가장 예뻤을 때When I Was Most Beautiful) are also set in Gwangju. In her work, Gong portrays the sorrow and loss of Gwangju citizens who have personally experienced these atrocities.
Like the characters in her fiction, Gong has suffered much hardship in her life. In the end, however, what characterizes Gong's life as well as the women in her works are the strength, independent spirit, as well as a certain fierce determination to preserve basic humanity and decency even in the midst of insurmountable hardships. Such a vision of womanhood is further affirmed in her recent works which embrace the very will to life that cannot be vanquished.
