| DATE: | Thursday, December 9, 2004 |
|---|---|
| TIME: | 4:00-6:00 p.m. |
| PLACE: | IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St., 6th Floor |
| FORMAT: | Lecture and book reading |
| SPONSOR: | Center for Korean Studies |
Born in 1932 in Wônsan, Kangwôn Province (now North Korea), Lee Ho-Chul made his literary debut in 1955 with the short story, "Far from Home." In 1961 he received the Modern Literature Prize for "Panmunjom", in 1962 the Tongin Literature Prize for "Wasting Away." He was active in "Citizens for the Defense of Democracy," a dissident group protesting authoritarian rule in South Korea; in 1973 he participated in the movement to oppose Park Chung Hee's adoption of the repressive Yusin Constitution and served as one of thirty sponsors of the "One Million Person Petition to Revise the Constitution." Accused of violating the National Security Law; he was incarcerated during much of 1974 and in 1980 was arrested along with others by Chun Doo Hwan's military junta; in 1985 he was appointed director of the "Writer's Alliance for the Promotion of Freedom" and in 1992 a lifetime member of the Korean National Academy of Arts. Awarded the Korean National Academy of Arts Prize in 1998, he is also the recipient of the Republic of Korea Ûngwan Cultural Achievement Medal. Several of his books translated have been published in such countries as Germany, Poland, France and Japan. South Wind, North Wind translated into Japanese and included in Modern Korean Literature. His two books, Southerners, Northerners (translated by Andrew Killick and Cho Sukyeon), and Panmunjom (translated by Theodore Hughes) have been published by East Bridge, Connecticut.
4:00p
Coffee/ Book Display
4:10p
Welcome (Chair Clare You) Introduction (Professor Youngmin Kwon, Seoul National University)
4:15p
The Literary Works of Lee Ho-Chul (Professor Yoon Sik Kim, Seoul National University)
4:20p
Video (Lee Ho-Chul's life)
4:35p
Lecture by LEE HOCHOL: "Division of Korea and Literature: Impact of Division on Korean People's Life and Strategy of Unification."
5:30p
Book Reading (In Korean/in English) Southerners, Northerners and Panmunjom
5:40p
Question & Answer
6:00p
Reception
Lee Ho-Chul
Translated by Andrew Peter Killick and Sukyeon Cho
Shortly after the outbreak of the Korean War, when he was eighteen, Lee Ho-Chul was drafted into the North Korean army. Southerners, Northerners (Namnyǒk saram pungnyǒk saram) is a fictionalized account of his inglorious yet dramatic experiences as a raw recruit and, soon afterward, as a prisoner of war. Beginning with some fascinating vignettes of North Korean high school life and ending with a narrow escape from death, the story offers a unique perspective on the early phases of the war and its everyday realities, from the tragic to the farcical.
But Southerners, Northerners is far more than a war memoir. The author's encounters with men from South Korea, first as volunteers in the North Korean army and later as military police and guards, provoke a searching examination of the difference in ethos that had already emerged between the two Koreas. Moreover, the events of the story constantly spark flashbacks and foreshadowings that stretch from the author's childhood in what was then a Japanese colony to his later years as a dissident in South Korea. This gives the novel a rich texture of association in which the wartime story becomes a focal point for a broad vision of North and South Korea through half a century of history. Ultimately, one man's experience becomes a prism through which are refracted the international forces that have made the Korean peninsula today almost the last outpost of the Cold War.
Andrew Peter Killick and Sukyeon Cho
Lee Ho-Chul
Translated by Theodore Hughes (two stories translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton)
It is no accident that Lee Ho-Chul, one of South Korea's most prominent writers (he is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the Modern Literature Prize, the Tongin Literary Prize, the Republic of Korea Literary Prize, and the Daesan Literary Prize), has spent much of his nearly fifty-year literary career portraying the calamity of national division. Born in 1932 in Wǒnsan, South Hamgyǒng province, in what is now North Korea, Lee was mobilized at the age of eighteen to serve in the North Korean Army following the outbreak of the Korean War. He was captured by UN forces and then released, making his way by boat to South Korea in December 1950. Following his arrival in the South, Lee worked at the docks in Pusan and later as a security guard at a U.S. Army base.
Almost all of the short stories by Lee Ho-Chul that appear in Panmunjom and Other Stories by Lee Ho-Chul concern themselves, in one way or another, with the devastating effects of North/South division on everyday life, particularly on the lives of separated families (isan'gajok), those who left the North for the South in the tumultuous period following the 1945 liberation of Korea from Japanese rule and during the subsequent Korean War (1950-1953). The fact that both the earliest story included in this collection, "Far from Home" (1955), and the latest, "Separated Family, Divided Nation — A Lamentation" (1999), explore the trauma experienced by these families itself attests to a tragedy that extends well beyond the three-year Korean War. To read Lee Ho-Chul is to begin to understand the extent of the suffering felt by those separated from family members — sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers — for over half a century. For them, the war continues — every day.
At the same time, there is a way in which "division" in Lee's work comes to mean something more than national division. Lee explores how lines are drawn between people, often without their knowing it, as they go about their daily lives. Lee frequently locates the source of these lines both in the rapid industrialization and urbanization of South Korea in the 1960s and 1970s under the authoritarian regime of Park Chung Hee. In "The Deputy Mayor Does Not Go to Take Up His Appointment" (1965), for example, Lee probes the depths of the psychological terror pervading South Korea under the repressive Park regime, unmasking the absurdity, and the violence, of Park's attempt to legitimize his 1961 military takeover as "revolution." Lee frequently critiques the complacency, apathy, and selfishness of the newly emerged South Korean middle class of the 1970s as creating yet another form of division: self-alienation. "Birthday Party" (1976) contrasts the decadence and tedium of upper-middle-class life in mid-1970s Seoul with a memory of confronting oneself as one is, on the threshold of death during the Korean War.
Lee rejects a strictly political solution to the problem of national division. Reunification, Lee seems to say, will occur not by way of summit talks between the leaders of nation-states but by a recovery of community and by achieving understanding, as well as forgiveness, at a more immediate level. This may very well be a solution a younger generation of Koreans born after the fall of the military dictators and now coming of age in the new millennium will increasingly turn to as they continue the struggle to achieve a peaceful, reunified Korean peninsula.
Theodore Hughes
Columbia University
1932: Born in Wônsan, Kangwôn Province, in what is now North Korea.
1950: Came to South Korea in December, following the outbreak of the Korean War. Wandered in search of employment; held a variety of jobs, including dockworker in Pusan, cook in a noodle factory, security guard at a U.S. Army base.
1955: Made his literary debut with the short story, "Far from Home."
1961: Received the Modern Literature Prize for "Panmunjom."
1962: Received the Tongin Literature Prize for "Wasting Away."
1971: Active in the "Citizens for the Defense of Democracy," a dissident group protesting authoritarian rule in South Korea.
1973: Participated in the movement to oppose Park Chung Hee's adoption of the repressive Yusin Constitution; served as one of thirty sponsors of the "One Million Person Petition to Revise the Constitution."
1974: Accused of violating the National Security Law; incarcerated from January 14-October 31.
1980: Arrested along with others following trumped up charges made by the military junta led by Chun Doo Hwan against Kim Dae Jung for "plotting to cause social disruption"; jailed from May 17-November 4.
1985: Appointed Director of the "Writer's Alliance for the Promotion of Freedom."
1988: Japanese translation of "Wasting Away" included in Anthology of Korean Short Story Masterpieces published by Iwanami Press.
1992: Appointed lifetime member of the Korean National Academy of Arts. South Wind, North Wind translated into Japanese and included in Modern Korean Literature.
1995: "Wasting Away" translated into Russian and included in Seven Korean Short Story Writers.
1998: Visited North Korea from August 27-September 5 under the sponsorship of the Tonga Daily. Awarded the Korean National Academy of Arts Prize.
1999: Northerners, Southerners translated into Polish. The Petite Bourgeoisie translated into Spanish and published in Mexico.
2000: Japanese translation of Southerners, Northerners published by Shinjosa.
2001: Participated in readings of The Petite Bourgeoisie in Mexico.
2002: German translation of Southerners, Northerners published. Participant in the Symposium on World Literature held in Frankfurt. Recipient of the Republic of Korea Ûngwan Cultural Achievement Medal.
2003: French and Chinese translations of Southerners, Northerners published. Served as Korean Representative to the World Literature Festival held in Berlin.
2004: Conducted a series of lectures in cities throughout the former East Germany; Awarded the Schiller Medal at the University of Jena. English translations of Northerners and Southerners and Panmunjom and Other Stories published by EastBridge Press. Chinese, Japanese and Spanish translations of short story collections completed; English translation of "Far from Home" to appear in the forthcoming Columbia Anthology of Modern Korean Literature (2005).
Excerpts of Reviews on Lee Ho-Chul's Works Appearing in the World Press
"More than anything else, Lee Ho-Chul's works tell us what it means to be human." Chosôn News (September 13, 2003)
"Lee Ho-Chul is more than a writer of prominence in South Korea; as a leading dissident in the struggle for freedom, democracy and reunification, he opposed successive authoritarian regimes in South Korea." Shanghai Literary Review (January 15, 2004)
"Southerners, Northerners offers a vivid description of life as experienced by a variety of intriguing characters under the two opposed social systems of North and South Korea." Wenhui Literary Review (July 17, 2004)
Now in the sixth decade of what has been a rich and prolific literary career, Lee Ho-Chul tells us, "It is my belief that in the final analysis all writers produce works commensurate with the struggles they have undergone in their own lives." Certainly Lee Ho-Chul is no exception to this rule. Debuting on the South Korean literary scene in 1955 with "Far from Home," a short story set during the Korean War that describes the psychological torment felt by refugees in South Korea as they begin to understand that they will not be able to return to their hometown in the North, Lee embarked on a literary career that includes numerous novels, short stories, newspaper columns, articles and essays. At the heart of all of his work is the pain of separation, the suffering felt by refugees in the South unable to return home. Over the years, Lee's works have increasing explored the depths of the tragedy brought to bear on the lives of ordinary people by the division of the Korean peninsula. Lee explains his views on reunification:
"The issue of North/South division can only be resolved by showing the true nature of the political power making up the regimes of both Koreas. Think of this political power as a piece of firewood that must be split asunder into ever narrower fragments in order to fit it into the fireplace — only when this is done will its true character manifest itself. . . . Reunification can only occur when both regimes step down from their positions on high and return to the everyday, to a respect for the ways in which people live and interact on a daily basis. . . . The task facing us today is far more difficult than that which confronted those who achieved the reunification of Germany. In 1945, both sides, North and South, did nothing but blindly rush to form authoritarian regimes; this led to a disastrous war and, in the end, to the tense situation on the peninsula we have been living with for the past half century."
In the 1970s, Lee Ho-Chul became a leading dissident in the pro-democracy movement. Incarcerated twice in 1974 and 1980, Lee suffered greatly at the hands of the military regimes. Lee's opposition to the authoritarian state should be seen as part of his extended effort to achieve North/South reunification. Regarding developments in Korea over the past twenty years, Lee offers the following analysis:
"It was in the late 1980s that the political structure in the South began to achieve a degree of normalcy, to return to an understanding of ordinary people and their concerns. The upshot of this was an astonishingly rapid recovery of a sense of community, a feeling of 'living together'; the entire country seemed set on the road toward prosperity. What is more, it was the return of politics to the people that led to President Kim Dae Jung's visit to Pyongyang and the North/South summit meeting of August 2000. . . . The decisive factor in returning government to the level of the people and their sense of 'living together' was none other than the dissident pro-democracy movement in South Korea. It is for this reason that I feel that the time I spent in jail and the efforts I made in my literary works to grapple with the issue of reunification were not wasted — they were part of a movement that bore fruit."
For half a century Lee Ho-Chul has devoted himself to Korean literature: he has written literature, and he has lived it. His achievement was honored in 1992, when he received the highest award given to artists in South Korea, appointment to the National Academy of Arts. Lee Ho-Chul received both the Daesan Literature Prize and the National Academy of Arts Prize for his 1996 Southerners, Northerners. Translated into Polish, Japanese, German, French and Chinese, Southerners, Northerners has been warmly received by a global readership. English translations of Southerners, Northerners and Panmunjom and Other Stories will be published by EastBridge Press in October 2004.
Southerners, Northerners centers on the account of a young high school student in 1950 North Korea who was mobilized to serve in the North Korean Army and later captured by South Korean forces. The author has stated that many of the important scenes and characters in the text are fictional; at the same time, Southerners, Northerners offers a narrative that coincides with Lee Ho-Chul's own life. Southerners, Northerners, then, presents us with much more than a series of vignettes on life at the time. This is a text that contains a powerful message, one obtained through lived experience and expressed by an author who has wrestled with the issue of North/South division for over fifty years. The core of this message lies in the author's view that reunification cannot be achieved by making the all-too-frequent turn to competing ideological frameworks. Lee's emphasis is on the task of living together as human beings. Lee expresses this view in this manner:
"If we complicate matters by agonizing over all the particulars of how to achieve reunification, the problem becomes incredibly complex and difficult; but if we decide to cut to the chase and consider the issue in the simplest manner possible, nothing could be easier. People from North and South must meet frequently, become acquainted, build mutual trust, understanding and affection; gradually a feeling of commonality will emerge, a sense of 'sharing the same rice pot as one household.' If we go through this process, don't you think we'll find one day that without our even knowing it reunification will have arrived right beside us? Indeed, it won't be that reunification is beside us, but that we'll have entered ever so naturally into this thing called reunification, we'll be sitting down together in the midst of it."
Lee Ho-Chul tells us that regardless of time or place, when people work to accomplish something out of self-interest, they are bound to fail — their efforts lead to nothing but further greed and desire. Lee critiques the numerous grandiose schemes that have been offered as solutions to the issue of national division over the past fifty years as having accomplished little; such schemes become lost in the grandiosity of their own words, incapable of achieving any real effect. Why is this the case? Lee points to a fundamental lack of the human that renders these schemes hollow at their very core.
Panmunjom and Other Stories by Lee Ho-Chul is composed of thirteen stories selected by the author himself from his more than one hundred short stories and novellas written over the past fifty years; along with Southerners, Northerners, the stories in this collection offer considerable insight into the emphasis Lee places throughout his work on a return to what it means to be human. Reviews by the world press on works by Lee Ho-Chul that have been translated into numerous languages demonstrate that Lee's concern is shared by a global audience. A South Korean literary critic has written of Southerners, Northerners that "A voice calling for reunification of the Korean peninsula emerges from the darkness." It is our hope that a U.S. readership will join with the world to encounter this voice.
