Hyun Ki-young

Hyun Ki-Young was born on Jeju Island in 1941 and graduated from Seoul National University. He has served as the Managing Director of the National Literary Writers Association (2000–2001) and as the President of the Korean Arts & Culture Foundation (2003).[2] Hyun was also the director of the Committee for the Investigation of the 3 April Jeju Uprising as well as the President of the Jeju Institute for the Investigation of Social Problems.[3]

Hyun is an expert on the history of Jeju Island in the modern era, particularly the April Massacre of 1948 in which islanders were killed en masse by the Korean police in the latter's attempt to exterminate communist sympathizers. The event is the subject of much of his writing. Hyun began his writing career in 1975 with "Father" (Abeoji), published in The Dong-a Ilbo, and strove to depict the psychological trauma experienced by Jeju islanders.[1]

Hyun is best known in the English-speaking world for his story "Aunt Suni", which was released in English in 2010 and panned for its poor translations.[4] The story has since been re-translated as "Sun-I Samch'on" in a bilingual (English and Korean) volume. The story was the first published writing in South Korea about the Jeju massacre, and shortly after its release in 1978, Hyun was arrested and tortured for three days by the South Korean authorities. The government claimed his arrest was due to his presence at an anti-government protest, but upon release he was warned against ever writing about the massacre again, which revealed the government's true motives behind his arrest.[5]

Hyun is extremely well known in South Korea having won a number of literary prizes, including the 5th Sin Dong-yeop Prize For Literature in 1986, the Manhae Prize in 1990,[6] the Oh Yeong-su Literary Prize in 1994,[7] and the 1999 Hankook Ilbo Literature Prize.[3]

• A Bird Crying in the Periphery (변방에 우짖는 새, 1983)
• Windy Island (바람타는 섬, 1989)
• The Last Horse Herder (마지막테우리, 1994)
• One Spoon on This Earth (지상에숟가락하나, 1999)

• Uncle Suni, (1979) Gakbook, 2008 ISBN 978-89-6208-002-5.
• Dead Silence. Stories on the Jeju Massacre, EastBridge Signature Books, 2007 ISBN 1-891936-80-8.
• Sun-i Samch’on Asia Publishers, 2012 ISBN 978-89-94006-22-2.
• One Spoon on This Earth, Dalkey Archive Press, 2013 ISBN 978-1564789150.

• Review of Aunt Suni