Geumo Sinhwa

Geumo Sinhwa (금오신화, Chinese 金鰲新話, Tales of Mount Geumo or New stories of the Golden Turtle) is the first known novel written by a Korean author, Kim Si-seup during the reign of King Sejong. Like most of the early literature of Korea it forms part of the Chinese-language literature of Korea.^[1]

The title comes from Geumo-san, the Mount of the Golden Turtle, today called Namsan (Gyeongju), which was the site of the Yongjang Temple where tradition records that Kim wrote the stories. The novel is written after the Chinese Jiandeng Xinhua (Tales while trimming the lampwick, 1378) of Qu You,^[2] but is not simply a pasticcio of the works contained in Jiandeng Xinhua.^[3]

References

1. Hyŏn-hŭi Yi, Sŏng-su Pak, Nae-hyŏn Yun New history of Korea 2005 p399 "The New Stories of the Golden Turtle (Geumo sinhwa) by Kim Si-seup, which is a fictional biography in the form of a folk story, ...
2. Louis-Frédéric Encyclopaedia of Asian civilizations -Vol.3 p60 - 1977 "GEUMO-SINHWA * (R : Kum-o-sin-hwa) Korea, lit. «Tales of Mount Geum*, a novel written in Chinese in imitation of the Chinese Jiandeng Xinhua, by Gim Si-seub ..."
3. Korean literature: its classical heritage and modern breakthroughs UNESCO Korea Committee 2003 p391 "Nor can we consider Geumo sinhwa by Kim Si-seup as a quilt made of patches taken from many works contained in Jiandeng xinhua}*1 Lastly, scholars have neglected to study the different versions of Chinese works that are believed to have ..."