Jeon Sang-guk (born 1940) is a South Korean writer.
Life
Jeon Sang-guk was born in Hongcheon, Gangwon Province. He earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Korean literature from Kyung Hee University. He taught high school for many years before becoming a professor of Korean literature at Gangwon University. Jeon made his literary debut in 1963, winning the Chosun Ilbo New Writer's Contest with his short story "Donghaeng" (동행 Side by Side). He has published many short stories and a small number of novels since the late 1970s. His first collection of stories, Baramnan maeul (바람난 마을 Fast-living Village) was published in 1977, and his first novel, Neupesoneun barami (늪에서 바람이 Wind From the Swamp) followed in 1980. His novel Gil (길 Road) has received particular critical acclaim. He is the recipient of the Literature Prize for Korean Writers, the Literature Prize of the Republic of Korea, the Dong-in Literary Award, the Yun Dong-ju Litearary Award, and the Kim Yu-jeong Literary Award, among others.
Writing
Jeon's work is commonly characterized by the adjective 'masculine'. This may be explained in a variety of ways. His style is tight and austere, and he has sometimes been criticized for his lack of ornamental details. His plots are boldly structured, usually focusing on themes related more or less directly with the division of Korea and the Korean War. His main characters are almost invariably masculine and the stories are frequently set in boys' middle and high schools. The problems inherent in Korean education are often evoked. He is a serious writer, and much of his work deals with the problem of evil. This theme of evil is linked to the way in which his male characters are often shown to suffer from strong, dictatorial father-figures. The challenge facing his characters is to find a way of confronting and overcoming the evil that pervades society. [1]
Jeon Sang-guk drew on his personal experiences of the Korean War and the ensuing division of the country to reconfirm the tragic consequences of these events. For Jeon, however, the real suffering is not in the war itself but in its aftermath, in the families ripped apart and the homes lost. In Abeui gajok (아베의 가족 Ah-be's Family), the wounds left by the war is symbolized in a mentally disabled child of rape, abandoned by his mother, who immigrates to the U.S. with her new family. The guilt-ridden mother, however, fails to find peace in the new land. The tragedy, therefore, is not only found in the rape and its by-product, the handicapped child, but also in the consequence of the attempt to escape the traumatic memories of it. Jeon's serial novel, Gil, further investigates the aftermath of the war through the problem of families separated by the war and the division.
In the 1980s, Jeon, who worked for a long time as a schoolteacher, expanded the scope of his literary topic to include problems in education. His stories "Usangui nunmul" (우상의 눈문 Tears of an Idol), "Doeji saekkideurui ureum" (돼지새끼들의 울음 The Squealing of Piglets) and "Eumjiui nun" (음지의 눈 Eye of Darkness) take the confined space of the school as a microcosmic setting, and explore the problematic relationships between teachers and students, as well as among the students themselves as they correlate to the similar issues in society at large.
References
[1] Korean Literature Today. Volume 4, No.2, Summer, 1999. http://anthony.sogang.ac.kr/klt/99summer/chonsangkuk.htm#content
