Lee Ho-cheol

This is a Korean name; the family name is Lee.
Lee Ho-cheol
Language Korean
Nationality South Korean
Ethnicity Korean
Citizenship South Korean
Korean name
Hangul 이호철

Lee Ho-cheol (Hangul: 이호철), born in 1932 in North Korea, is a South Korean writer who has won several awards.[1]

Life

Lee Ho-cheol was born on March 15, 1932 in Wonsan, Hamgyeongnam-do, North Korea and lived through the tragedy of the ideological conflict in Korea. His father refused to cooperate with Northern communists and his family had their property confiscated and were chased out of their hometown.[2] During the war, Lee Hocheol was drafted into the North Korean army and sent to the front in the South. He eventually rejoined his family in his native town, but ultimately decided to move to South Korea by himself. A prolific writer as well as an activist, he participated in the democracy movement against the dictatorial regime of President Park Chung-hee and spent most of the 1970s in the prison. In the 1980s, after the army general Chun Doo-hwan gained power through a coup d’etat, Lee Ho-cheol continued to battle against military dictatorship despite government persecution, and became actively involved in organizations such as the Association of Writers for Literature of Freedom and Practice (Jayu silcheon munin hyeobuihoe).[3]

Work

Lee Cho-heol made his debut in 1955 with the story Leaving Home, and was known as a writer who directly confronted and described reality. His early stories explored the emotional toll of the Korean War on individuals and illuminated the conflict between those who benefited from the war and those who were ruined by it.[4] National Division also became one of his themes and “Panmunjeom” (Panmunjeom, 1961), a story of a South Korean reporter’s visit to the DMZ and his brief but warm encounter with a female reporter from the North, is one of his most famous stories.[5] Northerners, Southerners, similarly, focused on issues of the split from the perspective of a young Korean soldier.[6] Lee was also interested in the effects of economic success, sometimes writing about the petit bourgeoisie becoming hardened by hollow values and pursuit of money.[7]

Works in Translation

Works in Korean (Partial)

Short Story Collections

Novels

Awards

References

  1. "박상순" biographical PDF available at LTI Korea Library or online at: http://klti.or.kr/ke_04_03_011.do#
  2. Korean Writers The Novelists. Minumsa Press. 2005. p. 161.
  3. "Lee Ho-cheol" LTI Korea Datasheet available at LTI Korea Library or online at: http://klti.or.kr/ke_04_03_011.do#
  4. Korean Writers The Novelists. Minumsa Press. 2005. p. 161.
  5. "Lee Ho-cheol" LTI Korea Datasheet available at LTI Korea Library or online at: http://klti.or.kr/ke_04_03_011.do#
  6. Korean Writers The Novelists. Minumsa Press. 2005. p. 163.
  7. Kenneth M. Wells, ed. (1995). "Victimization: Historical Fate". South Korea's Minjung Movement: The Culture and Politics of Dissidence. Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press. p. 170. ISBN 978-0585326719.
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