Hyun Kil-un


Hyun Kil-Un was a Jeju Island-based South Korean writer.

Life

Hyun Kil-Un was born on February 17, 1940, on Jeju-do. Hyun graduated from Jeju University and then Hanyang University's Graduate School. Hyun was a professor of Korean Language and Literature at Hanyang University.

Work

Hyun's work can not be separated from his birthplace, Jeju-do, the largest island of Korea. Hyun's Jeju-do was not a vacation destination, but the land of the first mass rebellion after the Korean national division. Hyun visited and re-visited the events of the time, and the scars that they caused.
The stories contained in his first collection, The Dream of Pegasus, deal specifically with the traumatic historical event remembered as “April 3rd Uprising”, in which masses of ordinary civilians were slaughtered by the police in an attempt to rout communists. Hyun tries to reinvestigate this event and properly mourn the death of innocent people in order to console their hovering spirits. Often it is the unique customs and folklore of Jeju Island that suggests a way toward healing: “The Journal of Gwangjeong Pavilion” and “Ceremony on the Last Day of the Month” utilize the traditional legend of a “strong woman” to describe the hope people of Jeju harbor for the return of a hero who will save them from the tyranny of politicians and bureaucrats. Hyun was also concerned with ideological or historical distortions of truth. Private truth is to be privileged over official accounts; The Skin and the Inner Flesh employs the sustained metaphor of surface and depth to characterize the relationship between official, often ideologically manipulated versions of “truth” and enduring human truths buried beneath. It is precisely these surface distortions or historical fallacies that he sought to expose in “Fever” and “A Strange Tie”.

Works in translation

Story collections
Novels
Critical studies