Yi Mun Yol

▪ 1996

      Yi Mun Yol may have been unhappy in his early years, but he so superbly turned this to his advantage that he became a commanding presence in the world of Korean literature. Once his works had been translated into major European and Asian languages, his literary talents also received wide praise overseas.

      Yi was born on May 18, 1948, in Yongyang, Kyongsang-pukto. Two years later, at the outbreak of the Korean War, his father defected to North Korea. As a consequence, his family had to contend with poverty, social stigma, and police surveillance. These factors came into play when Yi decided to drop out of school. Suffering from deep depression, he came close to committing suicide. Throughout it all, however, he read omnivorously, which served him well in his later career.

      Yi proved himself a master of the short story, novella, and novel. After making his debut in 1979 with realistic stories centred on social problems, he quickly went on to reveal the many faces of his talent one by one. In Son of Man (1979), he explored numerous Western and Oriental theologies in the course of tracing a young man's determined quest for transcendence. Youth (1981), a trilogy of novellas, recorded a young man's Herculean efforts to overcome his romantic nihilism and his impulse to commit suicide. Hail to the Emperor (1983), a jeu d'esprit, is a rambunctious satire on imperial delusions that showcases the author's incredible erudition. In The Age of Heroes (1984), Yi imaginatively reconstructed what he imagined his father's life might have been like after his defection to communist North Korea. In each of the 16 short stories making up You Can't Go Home Again (1986), Yi examines one aspect of hometown life, a spiritual space that has vanished beyond recall. It evokes nostalgia, fury, or pained amusement. In Odysseia Seoul (1992), readers travel through the maze of Seoul's underworld, encountering evils and corruption every step of the way. In "The Bird with Golden Wings" a master of calligraphy becomes the central figure in a discussion of Eastern and Western aesthetics. In The Poet a 19th-century vagabond poet is torn between his political commitments to the people and the pursuit of his artistic ideals. He suffers, moreover, from a distrust of his own motives.

      Yi produced 12 novels and 52 novellas and short stories, besides numerous other kinds of writing. The range and force of his works were even more impressive than their volume. Yi, still in his late 40s and apparently at the height of his power, was certain to continue to enrich Korean literature and delight and enlighten his enthusiastic readers worldwide for years to come. (SUH JI-MOON)

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