Yun Dong-ju: A Critical Biography

by Song WooHye, Flora M. Kim (translator), David Krolikoski (foreword)

Historian and novelist Song WooHye chronicles the life of Yun Dong-ju (1917-1945), one of the most beloved and important poets in the modern Korean literary canon, widely considered Korea's "National Poet". Beginning with the history of the North Gando region (now Yanbian, China), where Yun was born, and ending with facts behind the publication of his only and posthumous poetry collection, Sky, Wind, Star, and Poem, this critical biography elucidates who Yun Dong-ju really was, with factual descriptions of the bleak and turbulent period of Japan’s colonization of Korea.
 
While first working on the book in the 1980s, Song had interviewed the poet’s surviving relatives and friends, most of whom have since passed away. Without her interviews, these important first-hand accounts would have been lost. Song had an added advantage of an “insider,” as she is a niece of Song Mong-gyu, who was the poet’s first cousin and inseparable friend for life. Incorporating newly discovered materials and using interviews with the beloved poet's family and friends, this biography is the most comprehensive, definitive biography of Yun Dong-ju to date, now available in English for the first time.
 

This book is published with the support of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea). 

337 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1988

Reviews

[ROOROO · Rating 5 out of 5]

평전이란 필자의 감상이 포함될 수 밖에 없으니 그 부분만 조심해서 읽으면 문제가 없다.
그런 점만 주의하면 송우혜의 윤동주 평전은 마지막 장까지 재미있었다!