Prolific and influential, Kim Byong-ik has made his mark on every aspect of the literary world. Since his retirement, he has remained as engaged as ever reading every day and even staying in touch with changes in pop culture.

Kim Dongshik: What I was the most concerned with as I prepared for this interview was how I should introduce you. You have been engaged in quite a variety of fields, as a journalist, publisher, professor, literary critic, translator, and cultural administrator, among others. I think I should introduce your profile for the readers of _list.

You, Mr. Kim Byong-ik, were born in 1938 in Daejeon, and graduated from the Department of Political Science at Seoul National University. You began to work as a journalist for the Dong-A Ilbo in 1961, participated in the production of 68 Literature, a literary magazine, in 1968, and launched Literature and Intellect, a quarterly journal, with Kim Hyeon in 1970. In 1975 you were dismissed from The Dong-A Ilbo for your leadership in the freedom of press movement, and in the same year, founded Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. and took up your post as the director. In 1988 you served as the chairman of the board for Korean Publishing Research Institute, a visiting professor at Inha University in 2001, and as the first chairman of Arts Council Korea in 2005. You are a journalist who strove for freedom of press in Korea, a publisher who established Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd., one of the major publishing companies in Korea, a literary critic who has made ceaseless efforts to investigate the field of Korean literature, and a cultural administrator who has worked to promote culture and art in Korea. It’s been several years since your retirement, but you have not ceased in your efforts. Recently, you published Understanding and Sympathy, a book of essays. What else have you been up to?

Kim Byong-ik: I’ve been writing serially for the Moonji webzine. I have more time now that I am retired, so I’ve been reading and rereading books I’d been wanting to read but didn’t have time for. I’m not reading for any special purpose or use—you could call it humanistic reading, or reading for pleasure, as Kim Hyeon, the critic, calls it. I take excerpts and make notes as I read. In the West, there’s a way of reading called “marginalia.” Marginalia refers to the notes the reader makes in the margins of the book. I think my way of reading classic works, taking excerpts, and adding comments is similar to marginalia. I’ve read the complete works of Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann, and Albert Camus in this way, and I’ve been publishing what I’ve written in the process in a magazine.

KD: I admire your continuing passion for reading and writing. Aside from literature, what do you read mostly? Could you tell me a little bit about something you’ve read recently?

KB: Kevin Kelly’s What Technology Wants, the Steve Jobs biography, and Denis Brian’s The Curies come to mind. Lately I’ve been reading some light, science-related books for fun. No one’s there to rush me, or ask me to write. I’ve been reading at my leisure, enjoying the freedom of my later years.

Literary Critic Kim Byong-ik

KD: You’ve been writing your whole life, and engaged in fields related to books. What are your thoughts on books and writing?

KB: Come to think of it, I read books, write books, and make books. You could say that I’ve done nearly everything that has to do with books (laughs). I think we need to look at books and writing today from a perspective of history of civilization. I believe we are going through the biggest change in the text culture since Gutenberg. It seems that fundamental changes come according to the leading media of the day, or media related to writing. People read e-books instead of paper books, type on the keyboard instead of writing with their hands, and write on the computer instead of paper. I think in that process of such changes, people have come to take on a different attitude in dealing with texts. There’s a difference between what people wrote letter by letter when paper was scarce, and what they write on the computer monitor, that is easily revised. In the process in which digital media and writing came together, texts became much too common, and the value of writing has become generally depreciated. The democratization of knowledge is a positive phenomenon, but I think respect for knowledge itself has become greatly undermined. You could say it’s the end of the days in which people read a paper copy of War and Peace. It’ll probably be difficult to find people reading thick paperbacks of challenging classics. So there has been some criticism on the general method of reading in this digital era—the “staccato method,” for instance, in which you skip over things as you read, or the “F method,” in which you pay attention only to the beginning of a paragraph. Personally, I think two methods of reading are necessary. I believe it would be best if these two methods co-existed—a humanistic way of reading, which involves reflection, and digital reading for information.

KD: You’ve been writing reviews on Korean literature since the 1960s. This is a very broad question, but could you share your thoughts on the past and present of Korean literature?

KB: From the early 20th century to the 1970-80s, literature in Korea was the integration of intellectual culture. It was the mentor of life, and the center of intellectual awareness. Korean literature centered around the themes of nationalism during the colonial era (1910-1945), separation and war after the liberation in 1945, and interest in the marginalized in the industrial era after the 1970s. And after the 1990s, it experienced the digital civilization and postmodernism simultaneously. A problem arose in the process. Literature became marginalized, authors became lowered in rank, and the value of intellectual expression became more relative. Such phenomena are not peculiar to Korea, nor are they problems inherent only in literature. They are changes according to changes in the time and civilization. It seems inevitable that literature will lose its authority in the future as the center of intellectual culture and the mentor of one’s life. Historically, there are fields of study that have taken the lead. The center has moved from theology to philosophy, then to science, literature, and now, information. There are times when I feel pessimistic about literature. James Joyce and Marcel Proust produced works that are very experimental but whose writing methods reveal the era. But now, nothing is new. Literature seems to be heading towards trivialism.

KD: You have continued to seek the raison d´être of literature in the information age since the 2000s. In 2005, you published a book of criticism titled, Still, Literature Must Go On. Where can we find a new possibility for literature in this information age?

KB: As I said earlier, I don’t really expect that literature can have as great an influence as it did in the early 20th century. I think literature in the information age should seek a new form as it communicates and cooperates with other cultural genres, such as film, drama, and musicals. As Steve Jobs brought together design and technology, literature should be brought together with other cultural arts.

KD: You mentioned literature that communicates with the arts, which reminds me that you’ve always been open-minded about other cultures. When you were a journalist, you designated the culture of the young generation, represented by acoustic guitars and jeans, as the youth culture, and made important statements about its cultural significance. You’ve always observed the changes in a new era and made efforts to keep an open mind about them. I remember what you wrote about the rock band Jaurim. Do you like listening to rock?

KB: I don’t really like rock music (laughs). Rock is like a stranger to me. But even if it doesn’t suit me, I’ve always respected and admired people working in that genre. An open mind is the beginning of self-improvement, and learning comes from others.

KD: You’ve played an important role in Korean literature being introduced abroad. Could you tell me about the introduction of Korean literature abroad?

KB: I traveled to various countries, which has nothing to do with my ability to speak foreign languages (laughs). In 1982, I participated in a forum hosted by Sweden and Finland. I went with Yi Cheong-jun, the novelist, and Chong Hyon-jong, the poet. With the 1988 Seoul Olympics ahead, the Korean government was starting to have a growing interest in the Nobel Prize for Literature. The questions I received at the forum were, Is there a Korean script? Is there a native Korean language? Is there literature in Korea? and so forth. Nothing was known about Korea and Korean literature. In 1992, literature exchanges were held with Germany and Japan, under the sponsorship of the Paradise Foundation. I thought Germany would have a perspective similar to that of Korea on literature, because they had also experienced division. I thought experiences such as separation, dictatorial rule, and postwar poverty would resonate with them. But they weren’t interested in Korean novels dealing with topics such as separation, poverty, and dictatorship. Instead, they showed great interest in experimental poems by poets such as Kim Hye-soon and Oh Kyu-won. I fully realized that there was a gap between the topics we were interested in, and the ones foreigners were interested in.

KD: I went to the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2005. As you said, I felt that there was a great gap between the literature that’s highly esteemed in Korea, and the literature foreigners are interested in.

KB: During our exchange with Japan, we shared works dealing with the Korean War and political dictatorship. The writers from Japan all fled after reading the statement (laughs). I came to understand that our painful experience doesn’t always arouse sympathy, and current and universal themes are important as we advance abroad. Bearing in mind communication with those abroad, I think works that are not “Korean” in nature will be more readily accepted. LTI Korea was established in 2001. You could sum it up in this way. In the 1980s we let those abroad know that there’s a native Korean language and script; in the 1990s, that there’s literature in Korea; in the 2000s, that there are writers in Korea; and in the 2010s, that there are literary works in Korea. The success of Shin Kyung-sook’s Please Look After Mom can be understood in such a historical context.

1. The Threshing of Memories

Kim Byong-ik, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd.

2009, 412p, ISBN 9788932019987

2. Understanding and Sympathy

Kim Byong-ik, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd.

2012, 376p, ISBN 9788932023618

KD: The Korean language is a language of a minority group which consists of only 70 million people. How can we get past the parochial nature of Korean literature?

KB: It was through Goethe’s works that we came to know German literature. By reading the works of Goethe, the writer, we became interested in Germany and German literature. The opposite is true, however, in Korea. We introduced our country abroad, and then readers abroad come to read works of Korean literature. I think it’s time that we introduce the works first. As I said, there is bound to be a gap between our perspective and those abroad. We had great pride in epic novels such as Land and Taebaek Mountain Range in the 1990s. But with more than 10 volumes in many cases of epic novels, the process of translation was very difficult. A novel in a single volume, to be considered for translation, was difficult to find. Yi Cheong-jun’s This Paradise of Yours and Bok Koh-ill’s In Search of an Epitaph were about the only ones. I also think it’s important to secure methods of communication on various levels in order to introduce Korean literature abroad. Translation is important, of course, but it must be backed up by media reviews and academic research on Korean literature. Exposure through local media and mentions by renowned critics are necessary. Recently, Korean pop culture has spread throughout the world through K-pop. I hope that the literary culture of Korea will become widely known as well. As is always the case with the acceptance of a foreign culture, the advance of Korean culture abroad will also be a gradual process.

KD: For Korean literature to break away from parochialism, it seems that a reflection on the raison d’être of Korean literature and on the general problems of the modern society is vital. This is what crossed my mind as I listened to you.

KB: Just as there is no nationality in science, nationality is not a top priority in literature. The top priority in literature, I think, is the human issue. We read Tolstoy not to learn about 19th century Russia. We don’t read Proust to learn about 20th century France. We read them to learn about people, to understand human existence and the inner pains that come with it. In the case of Shin Kyung-sook’s Please Look After Mom, as well, I don’t think it appealed to foreign readers because it was a story about a mother, written by a Korean woman. I think the relationship between a mother and her children, and the sentiments involved, provided the possibility of communication.

Presenting the fundamental aspects of life on a level in which they can be communicated—I believe that is the role of literature. Even if literature is fated to lose its power, the importance of narrative, I believe, will remain. Narrative will undergo variations and transformation, but it will survive through various cultural genres, for at the root of narrative is the human life. I published a book of criticism titled The Threshing of Memories. I think culture and art exist for the common memory of mankind. The world that’s given to us directly in our experience is meaningless in itself. It needs to take on meaning. Literature is a means of giving meaning to the world through language. And giving meaning to literature, that is criticism. As I mentioned before, I’ve been taking excerpts and making comments as I read. I think you could call it my way of giving meaning to the world and literature (laughs).

KD: Since your first book of criticism, Intellect and Anti-Intellect (1974), you’ve maintained a critical attitude on the fall of intellectuals, and awakened the importance of introspection and reflection through the intellect. You have also fought to defend the value of the intellect and literature, while being open to changes in the era. I am confident that your writing and attitude on life will be an example to younger writers and intellectuals for a long time to come. Thank you for your valuable insight. I wish you well.

by Kim Dongshik