Bang Hyeon-seok is a South Korean writer
Life
Bang was born in 1961 in
Ulsan
Ulsan (), officially the Ulsan Metropolitan City is South Korea's seventh-largest metropolitan city and the eighth-largest city overall, with a population of over 1.1 million inhabitants. It is located in the south-east of the country, neighboring ...
, South Korea, and has served as the president of Society of Young Writers For Understanding Vietnam, and he continues to devote much of his creative energy to exploring
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
’s troubled past. His debut was in 1988 with "The Practice." Bang enrolled in the Chung-Ang University's Department of Creative writing in 1980 and later, under an assumed identity, worked as a laborer in Incheon. After leaving the factory in 1994 Bang collected history and information on democratic labor unions, a collection that informed some of his work including Off to Battle a Dawn.
Bang has worked as a creative writing professor at Chung-Ang University, on the editorial board of ''Silcheonmunhak'', and as the editor-in-chief of ''Asia: Magazine of Asian Literature''.
Work
Bang's first work was ''The First Step Forward'' which focused on factory laborers and their struggle to save union. Since that debut, Bang has continued to write “labor fiction.” Having worked as a laborer and a factory worker during the 1980s and 1990s, Bang writes about the hardships of the laborers in a post-capitalist society with sympathy and insight that he acquired firsthand.
"No matter what, literature is life and nothing else,” Bang has declared, “and the fulcrum of my life will continue to be literature. I vow to continue to write about the world I dream of, in the manner and style I choose." After the mid-1990s, Bang published several works that depict the dark period of military dictatorship.
''For Ten Years'' focuses on the
yushin dictatorship under
Park Chung Hee
Park Chung-hee (, ; 14 November 1917 – 26 October 1979) was a South Korean politician and army general who served as the dictator of South Korea from 1961 until his assassination in 1979; ruling as an unelected military strongman from 1961 ...
and ''Your Left Side'' is a portrait of the dictatorship under
Chun Doo Hwan
Chun Doo-hwan (; or ; 18 January 1931 – 23 November 2021) was a South Korean army general and military dictator who ruled as an unelected strongman from 1979 to 1980 before replacing Choi Kyu-hah as president of South Korea from 1980 to 19 ...
who came into power through the violent suppression of
May 18th Democratic Uprising in
Gwangju
Gwangju () is South Korea's sixth-largest metropolis. It is a designated metropolitan city under the direct control of the central government's Home Minister. The city was also the capital of South Jeolla Province until the provincial office ...
.
Bang, however, is not only a historical author. His ''A Form of Existence'' is an attempt to find “a solution through literature” to the problematic relationship between Vietnam and Korea, engendered by Korea’s participation in Vietnam War, and illuminates not just the past, but the present as well as the future of the two countries’ relationship.
Awards
* Oh Yeong-su Literary Award (2003)
* Third annual Hwang Sun-won Literary Award
Works in translation
* Off To Battle at Dawn (2013)
* Time to Eat Lobster (2016)
Works in Korean (partial)
Short Story Collections
* The House That Opens Tomorrow (Naeil-eul Yeoneun Jip, 1991)
* Time to Eat Lobster (Lobster-reul Meoknun Sigan, 2003)
Novels
* For Ten Years (Sip-nyeon-gan, 1995)
* Your Left Side (Dangsin-ui Oenpyeon, 2000)
Essay Collections
* Beautiful Resistance (Aremdaun Jeohang, 1999)
* A Star Rises in Hanoi (Hanoi-e Byeol-i Teuda, 2002)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bang, Hyeon-seok
Chung-Ang University faculty
1961 births
South Korean novelists
Chung-Ang University alumni
Living people
People from Ulsan