Jeon Sang-guk (Hangul: 전상국) is a South Korean writer known for his masculine writing style.

Life

Jeon Sang-guk was born March 24, 1940, in Gangwon-do, Korea. Jeon graduated from

Kyunghee University Kyung Hee University (abbreviated to KHU) (Hangul: 경희대학교; Hanja: 慶熙大學校) is a private research university in South Korea with campuses in Seoul and Suwon. Founded in 1949, it is widely regarded as one of the best universities i ...

with a B.A. and M.A. in Korean literature. He worked, for many years, as a High School teacher and then at a professor of

Korean Literature Korean literature is the body of literature produced by Koreans, mostly in the Korean language and sometimes in Classical Chinese. For much of Korea's 1,500 years of literary history, it was written in Hanja. It is commonly divided into classica ...

at Kangwon University.

Work

Jeon Sang-guk drew on his personal experiences in the Korean War and the ensuing division of the country to reconfirm the tragic consequences of these events. For Jeon, however, the real suffering is not in the War itself but in its aftermath, in the families ripped apart and the homes lost; and often, the War provides an opportunity to capture the drama of conflict and confrontation that exists in traditional human relationships. In Ah-be's Family, the wounds left by the war is symbolized in a mentally disabled child of rape, abandoned by his mother, who immigrates to the U.S. with her new family. The guilt-ridden mother, however, fails to find peace in the new land. The tragedy, therefore, is not only found in the rape and its by-product, the handicapped child, but also in the consequence of the attempt to escape the traumatic memories of it. Jeon's serial novel, “The Road” (Gil), further investigates the aftermath of the war through the problem of isan gajok or families separated by the war and the division. In the 1980s, Jeon Sang Guk, who worked for a long time as a schoolteacher, expanded the scope of his literary topic to include problems in education. His stories “The Tears of an Idol” (Usangui nunmul), “The Squealing of Piglets” (Doeji saekkideurui ureum) and “The Eye of the Darkness” (Eumjiui nun) take the confined space of the school as a microcosmic setting, and explore the problematic relationships between teachers and students, as well as among the students themselves as they correlate to the similar issues in society at large.Source-attribution, "Jeon Sang Guk" LTI Korea Datasheet available at LTI Korea Library or online at: http://klti.or.kr/ke_04_03_011.do#

Works in Translation

* Ahbes Familie (전상국 단편선-아베의 가족) * La familia de Abe (전상국 단편선-아베의 가족)

Works in Korean (Partial)

Short Story Collections * The Restless Village (Baram nan maeul, 1977) * That Place Beneath Heaven (Haneul arae geu jari, 1979) * Tears of an Idol (1980) * Ah-be's Family (1980) * Our Wings (Urideurui nalgae, 1981) * The House of Punishment (Hyeongbeorui jip, 1987) * Father (Aebi, 1966).

Awards

* Contemporary Literature (Hyundae Munhak) Award (1977) * Korean Literature Writers Award (1979), * Dong-in Literary Award (1980) * Korean Literature Award(1980) * Yoon Dongju Literature Prize (1988) * Kim Yujeong Literature Prize (1988)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jeon, Sang-guk 1940 births Korean writers Living people