Hyeon Giyeong (1941 — ) is a South Korean novelist. He has described himself as a “shaman 2) holding a requiem for the spirits of the Jeju 4.3 Uprising.” 1) With a deep love for Jeju Island as their foundation, his works expansively capture the lives of Jeju Island’s residents and the history of the island.
1. Life
Hyeon Giyeong was born in 1941 on Jeju Island and spent his childhood there. When he was eight years old, the Jeju 4.3 Uprising broke out and he experienced his hometown village being completely burned down. During middle school, he constantly wrote and won student writing contests and dreamed of becoming a writer someday. 3)
In 1961, he left Jeju Island when he was accepted into the Department of French Language Education at Seoul National University and settled in Seoul. He then switched majors to English Language Education and after graduation, spent around 20 years in Seoul working as an English language teacher. In 1975, his short story “Abeoji” (아버지 Father) won the Dong-a Ilbo New Writer’s Contest and he thus made his debut. His 1978 novella, Suni samchon (순이삼촌 Aunt Suni) directly dealt with the Jeju 4.3 Uprising and garnered much attention. Because of this work, he was dragged away by the authorities under the pretense of breaching national security and was brutally tortured. By a stroke of good luck, he managed to narrowly avoid being sent to trial under the charge of violating the National Security Law.4) Throughout his writing career, spanning over 40 years, he constantly wrote stories that were set on Jeju Island, most of which were favorably received. His novel Byeonbange ujinneun sae (변방에 우짖는 새The Warbling Bird at the Border, 1983) was also adapted into a film.5) His autobiography, Jisange sutgarak hana (지상에 숟가락 하나 One Spoon on This Earth, 1999), was selected as a recommended book on a popular Korean variety show and was thus read by many people. 6) Hyeon Giyeong is an author who actively participated in the problems of reality. He played a leading role in the Association of Writers for National Literature (민족문학작가회의 Minjok munhak jakga hoeui) 7) and served as its chairman from 2001 to 2003. In 2005, he participated as one of the South Korean representatives in the National Writers’ Congress which aimed to realize the June 15th North-South Joint Declaration between North and South Korea.8) When poet Ko Un was accused of sexual harassment, Hyeon Giyeong issued a statement defending him and caused controversy for essentially condoning victim-blaming within his remarks.9)
2. Writing
The horrors of ideological conflict between the left and the right experienced by the author in his childhood can be said to be the formative experience of Hyeon Giyeong’s literature. A native of Jeju Island, he directly experienced the Jeju 4.3 Uprising, and he witnessed and reconstituted the event through literature from the perspective of the Jeju Island people.10)
(1) The Jeju 4.3 Uprising from the People’s Perspective
The Jeju 4.3 Uprising is a crucial theme is inseparable from Hyeon Giyeong’s literature. Works such as “Aunt Suni” (1978), “Doryeongmaruui kkamagwi” (도령마루의 까마귀The Crow of Doryeong Maru City Plaza, 1979), and “Haeryong iyagi” (해룡 이야기The Story of the Sea Dragon, 1979), directly refute the dominant way of remembering the Jeju 4.3 Uprising during South Korea in the 1970s.11) Although the truth about the Jeju 4.3 Uprising was long unknown or remembered as a riot by communists, Hyeon Giyeong’s early stories unequivocally asserted the voice of the Jeju Island people which had been suppressed throughout this process of selective remembering.12) The characters in his works, such as Aunt Suni, the Gwiri Family (“Doryeongmaruui kkamagwi”), and Mother (“Haeryong iyagi”) are survivors of atrocious violence and suffer the aftereffects of this harm even in the time the stories are written. That is, in these novels, the Jeju 4.3 Uprising is not a concluded incident, but is one that continues to cause pain to the residents of Jeju Island and is still unfolding in the present. Works like “Mongmareun sindeul” (목마른 신들 Thirsty Gods, 1992) and “Majimak teuri” (마지막 테우리The Last Shepherd, 1994) depict a feeling of crisis with regards to how the people that can remember and testify to the horrors of the Jeju 4.3 Uprising are gradually disappearing. This is a particularly important problem for the author, who believes that the healing of wounds is not possible through a To the author, this is an important problem, because the healing of wounds is impossible through a mere mechanical reconciliation between the oppressor and victim, but can only be achieved by preserving the memories of the Jeju 4.3 Uprising. As the memorable final scene of “Majimak teuri” insinuates, what is most important is preserving the life force of the people and transforming the horrors of the Jeju 4.3 Uprising into a communal memory in order to form a bond of collective empathy. This is done through the role of the “simbang” or shaman13) in “Mongmareun sindeul,” and attempted by the author himself through formal experiments in “Soewa sal” (Iron and Flesh, 1992).
(2) The Expansion of “Jeju Island” Novels
Hyeon Giyeong’s writings, which began as a way to witness and overcome the wounds of the Jeju 4.3 Uprising, gradually expanded to encompass a larger history of Jeju Island in order to illuminate the historical aspects of the uprising. As seen in Byeonbange ujinneun sae (변방에 우짖는 새The Warbling Bird at the Border) which depicts Yi Jaesu’s Uprising 14) during the late 19th century and Baram taneun seom (바람 타는 섬The Island Sailing on the Wind) which represents the 1932 Jeju Island Female Divers’ Resistance (제주잠녀항쟁Jeju jamnyeo hangjaeng) 15) during the Japanese colonial period, these novels demonstrate the author’s expanded historical awareness of Jeju Island. Through these novels, Hyeon Giyeong demonstrates how the Jeju 4.3 Uprising is conected to a deep-rooted discrimination and exclusion of Jeju Island. Hyeon Giyeong’s novels begin with a distinct conflict structure between the Jeju Island residents and outside oppressors—a structure also used for Byeonbange ujinneun sae and Baram taneun seom. Whether it is government officials or capitalists, those that will return to the “mainland” are not interested in the lives of the Jeju Islanders. While Hyeon Giyeong’s short stories sharply depict this aspect of the conflict, his novels point out that this conflict emerges in the form of corruption and violence from a capitalist system and the state level.
(3) Critical Reception
“Aunt Suni” denounces violence at the state level and also received much attention for resisting the government power which tried to conceal the very violence it carried out. 16) His autobiographical novel, One Spoon on This Earth, demonstrates the origins of this kind of writer’s consciousness. One Spoon on This Earth depicts the author’s deep love for Jeju Island’s nature and people, as well as their language and culture. This book likely received positive responses from so many readers because of the writer’s beautiful descriptions of the nature on Jeju Island, as well as readers’ ability to empathize with the progressive views developed by “I” (the author) while growing up there. 17) As this progressive view could not have been developed without the experience of the Jeju 4.3 Uprising and a deep love for Jeju Island, this very love for Jeju can be seen as the origin of his literary practice. Most importantly, he emphasizes that social consensus can be attained by combining this love with an optimistic outlook on the people. Even as he scrutinizes regional problems, he expands them to the universal and his literature has thus been appraised as a significant product of regional literature. 18)
Reference
1) The Jeju 4.3 Uprising was an armed clash between right and left-wing forces resulting in a massive civilian massacre that took place on Jeju Island from 1947 to 1954. For more information, see the entry on “Jeju 4.3 Uprising” in Wikipedia Korea.
https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EC%A0%9C%EC%A3%BC_4%C2%B73_%EC%82%AC%EA%B1%B4
2) “Life Story: An Interview with Hyeon Giyeong.” Navercast.
https://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=3575957&cid=59013&categoryId=59013
3) In his first year of middle school, he wrote an autobiographical piece titled “Eomeoniwa eomeoni” (어머니와 어머니 Mother and Mother). Though Hyeon Giyeong’s father was not a victim of the Jeju 4.3 Massacre, he was a soldier and left Jeju Island where he started a second family in Incheon. “Eomeoniwa eomeoni” was apparently about his actual mother and this new mother from his father’s second marriage.
“Life Story: An Interview with Hyeon Giyeong.” Navercast.
https://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=3575957&cid=59013&categoryId=59013
Yakjeoneuro ingneun munhaksa [약전으로 읽는 문학사 Literary History Read Through Biographies (Somyeong, 2009) ] also mentions that he entered and won writing contests during middle school. However, while in the interview, Hyeon Giyeong recollected that the title of the piece he wrote in the first year of middle school was “Eomeoniwa eomeoni,” in Yakjeoneuro ingneun munhaksa, the piece’s title is given as “Eomeoni, eomeoni” (어머니, 어머니 Mother, Mother).
4) He allegedly avoided a full-scale trial because a trial for breaching the National Security Law would have alerted society to the Jeju 4.3 Uprising.
“Life Story: An Interview with Hyeon Giyeong.” Navercast.
https://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=3575957&cid=59013&categoryId=59013
5) The film was titled Yi Jaesuui nan (이재수의 난The Uprising). It was directed by Pak Gwangsu, and starred Lee Jung-jae, Shim Eun-ha, and Myeong Gye-nam. For more information, see the IMDb link below: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0208590/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_9
6) It was selected on “MBC Exclamation Mark, Let’s Read Books.” This program selected and recommended one book every week to viewers. The list of books that have been selected on this program are available at the link below. https://brunch.co.kr/@book-habit/28
7) The Association of Writers for National Literature (민족문학작가회의 Minjok munhak jakga hoeui) was a new name created when the Writers Council for Freedom and Practice (자유실천문인협의회Jayu silcheon munin hyeobuihoe), which had been established to resist the Yusin dictatorship under Park Chung-Hee, expanded and reorganized their group in 1987. In 2007, it was re-named as the Korean Writers Council (한국작가회의 Hanguk jakga hoeui). For more detailed information, see the links below.
Encyclopedia of Korean Culture: “Writers Council for Freedom and Practice.”
http://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Contents/Item/E0075907
Encyclopedia of Korean Culture: “Korean Writers Council”
http://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Contents/Item/E0070776
8) “Authors, Convening a Historical Conference of National Writers in Pyongyang.” Poli News, 21 July 2005. http://www.polinews.co.kr/news/article.html?no=17122
9) “Controversy Over Hyeon Giyeong, Writer of the First Record on the Jeju 4.3 Uprising, and His Defense of Ko Un.” Media Today, 25 March 2018.
http://www.mediatoday.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=141921
10) See the section on “Hyeon Giyeong” in Editorial Committee for the Collected Research on Modern Literature Over 100 Years, Literary History Read Through Biographies 2, Somyeong, 2008.
11) A comparable novel here is Gwak Haksong’s Jipaengin (집행인 Executioner, 1969). Gwak Haksong portrayed the Jeju 4.3 Uprising from the perspective of the Northwest Youth League (서북청년단 Seobuk cheongnyeondan). According to this novel, the Jeju 4.3 Uprising was a riot by communists who were indistinguishable from all the Jeju Island residents, and that it was rather the perpetrators of this violence who afterwards continued to long suffer from psychological trauma. Considering how Hyeon Giyeong chose “Suni” as the protagonist’s name in “Aunt Suni,” and mentioned a song from Jipaengin in “Haeryong iyagi,” it is likely that Hyeon Giyeong and his early stories were aware of Jipaengin.
Kim Dongyun. Theory of Jeju Island Literature. Jeju National University Press, 2008.
The Northwest Youth League was an extreme right-wing organization that was established in Korea during the rule of the United States Army Forces in Korea. For more information, see the page on the Northwest Youth League on Wikipedia Korea:
https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EC%84%9C%EB%B6%81%EC%B2%AD%EB%85%84%ED%9A%8C
Gwak Haksong (1927-1992) is a South Korean writer. For more information, see the entry on “Gwak Haksong” in the Naver Encyclopedia of Korean Culture.
http://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Contents/Item/E0004713
12) One critic interpreted “Aunt Suni” as “a record of a pain that cannot be approached by laws or documents.” Seo Yeongin. “The Literary Representation of Historical Truth.” Majimak teuri, Changbi, 2006.
13) This is a word used on Jeju Island to refer to shamans. For a brief explanation, see the article on “Simbang” in the Unabridged Dictionary of Korean Folklore and Religions: http://folkency.nfm.go.kr/kr/topic/detail/2483
14) Yi Jaesu’s Rebellion is also known as the Rebellion in the Sinchuk Year (신축민란 Sinchuk millan). It was a people’s uprising that confronted the brutal tax exploitation during the late Joseon Dynasty, as well as the harmful effects of Catholicism led by western missionaries. For a brief explanation, see the “Sinchuk millan” page on Wikipedia Korea.
https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EC%8B%A0%EC%B6%95%EB%AF%BC%EB%9E%80
15) The Jeju Island Female Divers’ Resistance (제주잠녀항쟁Jeju jamnyeo hangjaeng) was an anti-Japanese uprising and workers’ struggle in 1932 that broke out in the waters of Jeju Island as the result of Japanese business people and shipowners’ brutal exploitation of female divers, or haenyeo (“jamnyeo” is the Jeju Island dialect for female divers). For more information, see the “Jeju Island Female Divers’ Resistance” page on Wikipedia Korea.
https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EC%A0%9C%EC%A3%BC%EC%9E%A0%EB%85%80%ED%95%AD%EC%9F%81
16) There is a monument to “Aunt Suni” in Jeju Island. For a brief explanation and images, see the link below:
https://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=5939845&cid=63392&categoryId=66893
“Aunt Suni” has also been pointed out as one of the archetypes of marine culture on the Korean peninsula. Culture Content Library of Cultural Archetypes: “Aunt Suni.”
http://www.culturecontent.com/content/contentView.do?search_div=CP_THE&search_div_id=CP_THE010&cp_code=cp0905&index_id=cp09051462&content_id=cp090514620001&search_left_menu=
17) One Spoon on This Earth stirred controversy when it was designated as a “seditious” book by the Ministry of National Defense in 2008. It was only in 2019 when a judgment was finally made in the related lawsuit.
“A Victory for the Publishing World After Eleven Years: ‘The Ministry of National Defense Should Apologize for the Designation of Sedition.’” Hankook Ilbo, 1 August 2020.
https://www.hankookilbo.com/News/Read/202001081649393683
18) Though there is no definite criteria for regional literature, it has been explained as literature in which a region’s uniqueness / individuality is prominent, that resists regional centrality, or generates the values of the region itself.
“A Region Dwelling in Literature, Literature Illuminating a Region.” Pusan National University Daily, 10 March 2014.
http://weekly.pusan.ac.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=3489
19) Translator Kim Sok Bom is a zainichi (ethnic Korean in Japan) writer. Also a Jeju Island native, his novel, Hwasando (화산도(火山島 Volcano Island) is set in Jeju Island. For a brief explanation on Kim Sok Bom, see his page on Wikipedia Korea: “Kim Sok Bom (Writer)” https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EA%B9%80%EC%84%9D%EB%B2%94_(%EC%86%8C%EC%84%A4%EA%B0%80)
20) Changbi Author Introduction: “Hyeon Giyeong”
https://www.changbi.com/authors/6247?board_id=38
