Hwang, Sok-Yong 1943–

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Hwang, Sok-Yong 1943–

PERSONAL: Born 1943.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Seven Stories Press, 140 Watts St., New York, NY 10013.

CAREER: Writer.

MEMBER: Korean People's Artist Federation (president, 2003).

AWARDS, HONORS: Manhae literature prize, 1989; Danjae literature prize, 2000; Daesan literature prize, 2001.

WRITINGS:

(With Choi Mikyung and Jean-Noal Juttet) La route de Sampo, Zulma (Paris, France), 2002.

Monsieur Han, Zulma (Paris, France), 2002.

(With Lim Yeong-Hee, Marc Tardieu, and Françoise Nagel) L'ombre des armes, Zulma (Paris, France), 2003.

Le vieux jardin (title means "The Garden of Yesterday"), Zulma (Paris, France), 2005.

The Guest, translated by Kyung-Ja Chung and Maya West, Seven Stories Press (New York, NY), 2005.

Also author of Land of Strangers, Sonnim, and Jangkilsan.

SIDELIGHTS: Hwang Sok-Yong is one of the most celebrated Korean literary writers of modern times, having won numerous domestic and international awards for his writing. Although the subject matter of many of his works dealing with the politically sensitive issue of a divided Korea has brought forth great acclaim, it also led to Hwang's political exile and imprisonment in the 1990s.

One controversial work, The Guest, follows the homecoming of Yosop, a Presbyterian priest returning to North Korea for the first time since immigrating to the United State twenty years previously. Traveling with the ghosts of his brother and a servant, Yosop relives the massacre in Hwanghae Province between local Christians and communists through a series of flashbacks. While finding some difficulty in following the numerous flashbacks, a reviewer for Publishers Weekly praised Hwang for chronicling "Yosop's odyssey through guilt, fear, faith and forgiveness." A reviewer for Kirkus Reviews similarly felt that The Guest, "requires patient reading" but that the overall story offers "great insight into the region" and "is deeply rewarding."