Baek Seok

Baek Seok was born named Baek Ki-haeng in Chongju, North Pyongan on 1 July 1912, the son of Baek Si-bak (백시박, 白時璞) and Lee Bong-woo (李鳳宇). His father worked at Chosun Ilbo as a photographer. Baek Si-bak was not wealthy, but he participated in raising building funds for Osan school. Lee Bong-woo was known as a neat and good cook. In 1918,[4] Baek Seok entered Osan elementary school (founded in 1907) and his brother, Hyeob-haeng, was born. In 1919 Osan school was entirely burned down by Japanese military police for reasons that led to the March 1st Movement. Cho Man-sik, who was the principal of Osan school, was arrested and the school had to be closed for a year and a half. In 1924, Baek graduated from Osan elementary school and entered Osan middle and high school. He admired Kim So-wol, who was six years his senior, and got interested in literature.[5][6] He was a top-scoring student, but he could not enter university because of financial difficulties.[7] In January 1930, he won the first prize with his first novel The Mother and Son (그 모와 아들) in a literary contest hosted by Chosun Ilbo. That made him able to study at Aoyama Gakuin University with a scholarship funded by Chosun Ilbo.[5] In university, he majored in English Literature and also studied French and Russian. Studying abroad, he enjoyed poems of Japanese poet Takuboku Ishikawa and was interested in modernism.[5][6][8]

In 1934, he entered Chosun Ilbo's publishing department, having graduated from the university.[9] He edited a sister magazine Feminine (여성, Yeoseong) and translated foreign works and papers. He started to work officially as a writer and a translator releasing an essay "Earrings" (이설 귀고리, Iseol Guigori) on 16 May 1934. Translating D. S. Mirsky's paper made him think about how valuable the Korean language is and how to preserve it with poetry. On 31 August 1935, he made public his first poem "Chongju Fortress".[9] On 20 January 1936, he published at his own expense a collection of his poems entitled Deer which was a limited edition of 100.[10] Deer consisted of seven poems which were already published and the others new. On 29 January, a gathering to commemorate the publication of Deer was held at Taeseogwan and eleven people including Kim Kirim and Shin Hyun-jung got involved as proposers.[7]

This year, he resigned from the company and started for his new post as an English teacher in Yeongsaeng high school in Hamhung.[11] In Hamhung, he fell in love with Kim Jin-hyang, a kisaeng, and named her Jaya.[12] In 1938, he proposed to her that they leave for Manchuria and live free there. But, she refused proposal fearing that she would stand in his way. She left for Gyeongseong alone. Then, he wrote Me, Natasha and a White Donkey (나와 나타샤와 흰 당나귀, Nawa natashawa huin dangnagui). In January 1939, he returned to Gyeongseong and met Jaya again.[11] On 26 January 1939 he rejoined Chosun Ilbo and resigned on 21 October 1939.[7] He wrote travel poetry, "Traveling Western" (서행시초, Seohaengsicho) traveling Pyongan and Hamgyong.[7] In 1940 he left for Manchuria and got a job at Economics Department in Manchukuo with the help of his friends. But he resigned six months later because of pressure to follow Sōshi-kaimei.[5] In 1942 he worked at customs in Andong.

After the restoration of Korean independence, he returned to his hometown, Chongju.[9] He studied children's literature and was criticized by the literary world in North Korea. In June 1962, he became a shepherd in a collective farm in Samsu.[11] In October 1962, he quit writing as the criticism of reactionism grew intense. South Koreans and Japanese long believed that Baek Seok had died on the farm in 1963. However, it was revealed that he lived until 1996.[13]