Han Moo-sook (1918-1993) () was a South Korean writer. Her name may also be rendered in English as "Han Musuk", "Han Moo-suk", "Han Musook", "Mu-suk Han" or "Han Mu-suk".

Life

Han Moo-sook was born October 25, 1918 in

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...

and graduated from

Pusan Busan (), officially known as is South Korea's most populous city after Seoul, with a population of over 3.4 million inhabitants. Formerly romanized as Pusan, it is the economic, cultural and educational center of southeastern South Korea, w ...

Girls’ High School.KLTI
/ref> She initially studied fine arts but switched to literature after she married Kim Zin-hoong in 1941.Collected Short Stories From Korea She has five children. Active in literary and artistic circles as well, Han Moo-sook held various posts, serving as the director of Korean

P.E.N. PEN International (known as International PEN until 2010) is a worldwide association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The association has autonomous Internatio ...

Club, the

National Museum of Korea The National Museum of Korea is the flagship museum of Korean history and art in South Korea and is the cultural organization that represents Korea. Since its establishment in 1945, the museum has been committed to various studies and research a ...

, and Korean Women Writers’ Assembly. Han died in 1993. Han Moo-sook was a reclusive housewife who "whisked away" the first prize in a novel writing contest in the early 1941 After that she traveled from one literary triumph to another. Han received first prizes in drama competitions with a one-act play, ''Heart'', in 1943 and a four-act play, ''Frost Flowers'', in 1944. In 1948, in a competition sponsored by the newspaper Kukche Sinbo, she received first prize for her full-length novel, ''And So Flows History''. She won the Asia Foundation's Freedom Literature Award for a short story entitled "Abyss" (1957) and the Republic of Korea National Literature Award for her novel ''Encounter'' (1986). Han published her first novel, ''The Changes of History'', with Jai-Yaing Press and received popular acclaim. She also published short stories including "Broken Image," "Coming Home," "Stone," "The Emotional Complex," and "A Halo Around the Moon."

Work

Han Moo-sook's fiction often embraces purity through literature. While many Korean writers were enveloped in

nihilism Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan ...

existentialism Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...

, Han Moo-sook made her mark by warmly rendering human joys rather than engaging in cynical pessimism. Her themes varied from universal concerns including love and suffering to issues specific to the Korean context, including her portrayal of the anguish of a generation that witnessed the brief democratic euphoria of the 1960

April 19 Revolution The April Revolution ( ko, 4.19 혁명), also called the April 19 Revolution or April 19 Movement, were mass protests in South Korea against President Syngman Rhee and the First Republic from April 11 to 26, 1960 which led to Rhee's resigna ...

. All her works, however reveal her multitude of literary skills including vivid description of customs, precise language, and skillful representations of inner consciousness.

Works in English

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In the Depths
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Encounter: A Novel of Nineteenth-Century
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Running Water Hermitage
'

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Han, Moo-sook South Korean novelists 20th-century novelists 1918 births 1993 deaths Date of death missing