Kim Sagwa was born in 1984 in SeoulKorea where she also attended the Korean National University while studying Creative Writing. She graduated in 2009 after studying under mentors including Kim Young-ha. By graduation she had already been honored with the 8th Creation and Criticism New Writers Award for her story “02,” received a grant from the Korean Culture and Arts Foundation, and published her first two novels, Mina and P’ur i numnŭnda. In addition to her fiction, Kim also writes columns in two Seoul newspapers, interviewed novelist Douglas Kennedy for Singles Magazine, and was the co-translator into Korean of John Freeman's 2012 book How to Read a Novelist. Kim has lived internationally in the recent past including stints in the City of New York and in 2016 was given a U.S. visa as an O-1 Alien of Extraordinary Ability in the Arts, granting her a three-year residency.
Work
Her first story was titled "02" and for this work she was given the , by the Ch’angjak kwa pip’yong publishing house. She has also written several other books including Mina, P’ul i numnunda, and T’ero ui shi. Kim is also the author of a book for young adults entitled, Na b Ch’aek. In total she has written four novels and two short story collections. In 2016 “It’s One of Those the More-I’m-in-Motion-the-Weirder-it-Gets Days and It’s Really Blowing My Mind” became her first work published in English in the collection, The Future of Silence Fiction by Korean Women". This work was first published in Korean in Spring of 2010 by in the journal, Consonant and Vowel, and was placed on the short list for the Young Writer's Prize, given my . Kim has been compared to Jack Kerouac. According to Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton, Kim is “attuned to the pathology of life in Seoul, reflected in the national abnormally low birth rate and unusually high rates if divorce and suicide. “It’s One of Those the More-I’m-in-Motion-the-Weirder-it-Gets Days and It’s Really Blowing My Mind” is one of the rare Korean works to explicitly confront psychosis and count a mental breakdown as the reason for a homicide. It has also been called "brutal.., but nonetheless excellent reading.".
Works in Translation
"It’s One of Those the More-I’m-in-Motion-the-Weirder-it-Gets Days and It’s Really Blowing My Mind" in The Future of Silence Fiction by Korean Women, trans. Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton
“SF,” trans. Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton, Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature & Culture 7.
