Ri Ki-yong (also Lee Gi-yeong; May 6, 1896 – August 9, 1984) was a Korean novelist.
Life
Ri Ki-yong was born in
Asan
Asan () is a city in South Chungcheong Province, South Korea. It borders the Seoul Capital Area to the north. Asan has a population of approximately 300,000.
Asan is known for its many hot springs and is a city of spas.
Asan has grown into th ...
, Chunchongnam-do in Korea. He wrote under the name Minchon. Ri attended the Seiisku School of English in Tokyo, Japan, He worked as a member of KAPF in 1925 and was the organizer of the Choson Proletarian Writers' Federation in Seoul as well as the leader of the North Choson Federation of Literature and Arts.
1926, he served as an editor of Light of Joseon (Joseon jigwang), an organ of the Korean Communist Party and a journal promoting
proletarian literature
Proletarian literature refers here to the literature created by left-wing writers mainly for the class-conscious proletariat. Though the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' states that because it "is essentially an intended device of revolution", it is ...
. Ri Ki-yong spent more than two years in jail.
["Lee Giyeong" LTI Korea Datasheet available at LTI Korea Library or online at: http://klti.or.kr/ke_04_03_011.do# ]
After liberation from Japanese colonial rule, Ri moved to North Korea where he was key in creating the orthodox position on literature in North Korea, serving for several years in a key position in North Korean Federation of Literature and Arts. He is reported to have died in August 1988.
Work
The Korea Literature Translation Institute summarizes his contributions to literature:
Like many other North Korean writers, even famous ones, Ri is not well known in his home country, where biographical details of writers are generally not made known to the reading public. Tatiana Gabroussenko describes how, when she interviewed defectors, she:
Works in Translation
German
* Heimat (고향)
Works
* ''Seohwa''〈서화〉
* ''Ingan suop''〈인간수업〉
* ''Kohyang'' 〈고향〉''Home village'' 1934
* ''Shin gaeji''〈신개지〉「新開地」 ''Newly ploughed land'' serialised
* ''Ddang''〈땅〉''Soil'', 1949
* ''Tuman gang''〈두만강〉, ''Tumen River''
* ''Bom''〈봄〉''Springtime'' serialised in the
Dong-A Ilbo
The ''Dong-A Ilbo'' (, literally ''East Asia Daily'') is a newspaper of record in Korea since 1920 with a daily circulation of more than 1.2 million and opinion leaders as its main readers. ''The Dong-A Ilbo'' is the parent company of Dong-A ...
1940
[Ivanov, Viktorina Ivanovna New Fiction of Korea. Nauka. 1987]
See also
*
Cho Ki-chon
Cho Ki-chon ( ko, 조기천; 6 November 1913 – 31 July 1951) was a Russian-born North Korean poet. He is regarded as a national poet and "founding father of North Korean poetry" whose distinct Soviet-influenced style of lyrical epic po ...
*
Han Sorya
Han Sorya ( ko, 한설야, born Han Pyŏngdo; 3 August 1900 – 6 April 1976) was a Korean writer, literary administrator and politician who spent much of his career in North Korea. Regarded as one of the most important fiction writers in North ...
*
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 ...
*
North Korean literature
Reading is a popular pastime in North Korea, where literacy and books enjoy a high cultural standing, elevated by the regime's efforts to disseminate propaganda as texts. Because of this, writers are held in high prestige.
The partition of ...
References
Further reading
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ri, Ki-yong
1890s births
1984 deaths
20th-century Korean novelists
People from Asan
People from South Chungcheong Province
Literature of Korea under Japanese rule
Members of the 1st Supreme People's Assembly
Members of the 2nd Supreme People's Assembly
Members of the 3rd Supreme People's Assembly
Members of the 4th Supreme People's Assembly
Links
Grave Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour
North Korean novelists