Lee Seung-u

Lee Seung-u was born in Jangheung, Jeollanam-do in 1959.[2] Lee Seung-u graduated from Seoul Theological University and studied at Yonsei University Graduate School of Theology.[3] One of the outstanding writers to have emerged in South Korea after the political repression of the 1980s,[4] he is today professor of Korean Literature at Chosun University.[2]

Lee's literary career started with his novel A Portrait of Erysichton, which was triggered by his shock at the assassination attempt of Pope Paul II in 1981. This work received the New Writers Award from Korean Literature Monthly.[5] In 1993 Lee's The Reverse Side of Life was awarded the 1st Daesan Literary Award[3] and he has also received he East West Literature Prize for I Will Live Long,[4] the Contemporary Literature Award for Fiction and the Hwang Sun-won Literary Award.[2]

In Portrait of Erysichton, In the Shadow of Thorny Bushes, and The Reverse Side of Life, Lee Seung-u works on the notion of Christian redemption and how it intersects with human life, demonstrating how tension between heaven and earth are revealed in quotidian life.[6] Other works, including A Conjecture Regarding Labyrinth and To the Outside of the World face up to disillusionment pursuant to the corruption and devaluation of language.[3]

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, the 2008 Nobel Laureate for Literature, has a deep affection for Korean literature. During his year-long stay in Korea as a visiting professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, he held book readings with Korean authors on several occasions. At the press conference after the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony, he stated that “Korean literature is quite worthy of the Nobel Literature Prize,” and that “Personally, I would say that Lee Seung-u is one of the likely Korean candidates for the prize.”[7]

Among Lee’s works, only full-length novels have been translated into English and French, but he has published a great number of short story collections in the past three decades, due to the climate of the Korean literary world in which a writer’s capacity is evaluated mostly through short stories published in literary journals.[7]

• Die Ruckseite des Lebens (Horlemann, 1996)
• The Reverse Side of Life (Peter Owen Publishers, 2005)[8]
• La vida secreta de las plantas (Ermitano, 2010)
• 植物たちの私生活 (藤原書店, 2012)
• Тайная жизнь растений (Hyperion, 2013)
• Magnolia Park (ASIA Publishers, 2013)[9]
• ICI Comme Ailleurs (Gallimard, 2013)
• Prywatne Życie Roślin (Kwiaty Orientu, 2016)

• New Writer’s Award given by Korean Literature (1981)
• 1st Daesan Literary Award (1993)
• Dong-seo Literary Prize (2002)
• Lee Hyo-seok Literary Prize (2003)
• Contemporary Literature (Hyundae Munhak) Award (2007)
• Hwang Sun-won Literary Award (2010)[6]
• Dong-in Literary Award (2013)

• Korean literature
• List of Korean novelists