Kwon Yeo-sun (born 1965) is a South Korean writer.

Life

Kwon Yeo-sun was born in

Andong Andong () is a city in South Korea, and the capital of North Gyeongsang Province. It is the largest city in the northern part of the province with a population of 167,821 as of October 2010. The Nakdong River flows through the city. Andong is a m ...

North Gyeongsang North Gyeongsang Province ( ko, 경상북도, translit=Gyeongsangbuk-do, ) is a province in eastern South Korea. The province was formed in 1896 from the northern half of the former Gyeongsang province, and remained a province of Korea until the ...

Province of

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

in 1965. Kwon enjoyed a brilliant literary debut in 1996 when her novel ''Niche of Green'' was awarded the Sangsang Literary Award. At the time, novels that reflected on the period of the democratization movement in South Korea, were prevalent."Kwon Yeo-sun" LTI Korea Datasheet available at LTI Korea Library or online at: http://klti.or.kr/ke_04_03_011.do#

Work

Kwon's work is often unconventional in form and topic and for that reason she sometimes has a reputation for being difficult to read Kwon's first work ''Niche of Green'' was one of the most outstanding coming-of-age novels to emerge from the South Korean publishing world of the 1990s. Eight years after the publication of ''Niche of Green'', Kwon published a short story collection called ''Maiden’s Skirt''. This collection, a book that Kwon professes felt like publishing a love letter to herself, is about defeated individuals who, though troubled by their tragic fates, come to a place of resigned acceptance. The characters in this collection generally consist of people who are handicapped by relationships that society does not accept, such as extramarital affairs and gay relationships. Unable to overcome this sense of handicap, the characters witness their love collapse. In Kwon's second short story collection ''The Days of Pink Ribbon'', the characters are often people who have failed rather than succeeded. They are generally people with defects in their character or physique. In Kwon's work, characters do not fail because of exterior causes but because of their own shortcomings or due to bad fate. Her novel, told through interconnected short stories, '' Lemon'', was expanded from her 2016 short story "You Do Not Know". It was her first work translated into English, with

Janet Hong Janet Hong ( Korean: 홍지명) is a writer and translator of Korean literature based in Vancouver, Canada. She has translated numerous works of fiction, essays, and graphic novels such as Keum Suk Gendry-Kim's ''Grass.'' Her translation of the ...

as the translator and the translation released in 2021.

Works in Korean (Partial)

Novels * ''Niche of Green'' Short Story Collections * ''Maiden’s Skirt and The Days of Pink Ribbon''

Works in English

Awards

* Imaginative Literature Award (1996) * Oh Yŏng Su Literary Award (2007) *

Yi Sang Literary Award The Yi Sang Literary Award (이상문학상) is a South Korean literature, South Korean literary award. It is one of South Korea's most prestigious literary awards, named after Yi Sang, an innovative writer in modern Korean literature. The Yi Sang L ...

(2008) *

Hankook Ilbo Literary Award The Hankook Ilbo Literary Award (한국일보문학상) is a South Korean literary award. It is one of South Korea's most prestigious literary awards, established in 1968 by Hankook Ilbo ''Hankook Ilbo'' () is a Korean-language daily newspaper ...

(2012) * EBS Radio Literature Award of Excellence (2013)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kwon, Yeo-sun 1965 births Living people People from North Gyeongsang Province South Korean women writers South Korean writers South Korean crime fiction writers