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Yi Mun-yol

Yi Mun-yol was born in Seoul in 1948, but his father defected to North Korea during the Korean War, leaving his family in the South, where they had to endure years of suspicion and stigma. After much torment, struggle and poverty, he was able to enter Seoul National University. He made his literary debut in 1979 when his novella Saehagok was one of the winners of the New Spring Literary Contest sponsored by the Dong-a Ilbo newspaper. A prolific author, Yi Mun-yol has published a number of outstanding novels including Son of Man (the first chapter of which appears above), The PoetFor the Emperor, and the novellas Garuda and Our Twisted Hero. Since 1999 he has served as the head of the Buak Literary Center, a residential program for budding writers.



Articles Available Online


Son of Man

fiction

January 2014

Yi Mun-yol

TR. Brother Anthony of Taizé

fiction

January 2014

Rain falling onto thick layers of accumulated dust had left the windows of the criminal investigations office so mottled that they were virtually opaque....

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feature

September 2014

Missing Footage

Raphael Rubinstein

feature

September 2014

The discovery of absences (lacks, lacunae) and their definition must in turn lead the filmmaker as composer to the...

Art

March 2011

Gabriel Orozco: Cosmic Matter and Other Leftovers

Rye Dag Holmboe

Art

March 2011

‘To live,’ writes Walter Benjamin, ‘means to leave traces’. As one might expect, Benjamin’s observation is not without a...

fiction

November 2014

The Lighted Way

Jeremy Chambers

fiction

November 2014

Dad used to believe that the souls of the dead rise up into the air and become one with...

 

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