Heo Su-gyeong
허수경
Heo Su-gyeong (1964-2018) was a diasporic South Korean poet, translator, and archaeologist.
Life
Born in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, Heo studied Korean literature at Gyeongsang National University. She made her literary debut in 1987, publishing four poems including Ttaengbyeot (땡볕 Burning Sun) in Literature and Practice. She published two poetry collections in four years, emerging as one of the leading literary figures of her generation, before moving to Germany in 1992 to pursue a PhD in ancient Near Eastern archaeology at the University of Münster. After a nine-year hiatus from publishing, Heo continued to write award-winning poems, novels, essays, and children’s books in Korean while living in Münster. She also translated works by Michael Ende, Maxim Biller, Anette Bley, and the Grimm Brothers into Korean. She died of stomach cancer in November 2018.
Writing
Heo made her literary debut at the age of twenty-three in 1987 at the magazine Literature and Practice, and published her first volume of poetry Seulpeummanhan georeumi eodi isseurya (슬픔만한 거름이 어디 있으랴 There’s Not A Fodder Like Sorrow) the following year. In 1992, She published her second volume of poetry, Honja ganeun meon jip (혼자 가는 먼 집 To the Distant House, Alone). She infuses her poetry with the lyricism and the images taken from traditional Korean folktales and songs, thereby creating a uniquely Korean modern poetry free of western modernist influence. It can be said that distancing herself from her native tongue by living in a foreign environment is in itself the poet’s attempt to bring herself closer to the essence of the Korean language.
In Heo's poems, life is broken into pieces, filled with agony, incoherent, and loveless. Literary critic Lee Kwang-ho noted the difference in the style of her post-German work and her previous works, saying while her earlier works can be characterized as love poems combined with the rhythm and sensibilities of South Gyeongsang Province and the loneliness and sadness that she faced as a woman, her work while in Germany showed her musings of lengthy periods that reflects her archaeological background.
