Yun Dong-ju: A Critical Biography
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)

1147111464
Yun Dong-ju: A Critical Biography
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)

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Overview

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)


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781978841680
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Publication date: 10/14/2025
Series: DITTA: Korean Humanities in Translation
Pages: 284
Product dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)
Age Range: 16 - 18 Years

About the Author

A historian and novelist, SONG WOOHYE has published several novels and short story collections as well as biographies and collected essays. Best known for her work on Yun Dong-ju, she has also published papers on the history of North Gando and the Korean Independence Movement. She received a Samsung Literary Award in 1984.

FLORA M. KIM is a freelancing translator/interpreter based in New Jersey, where she was born. She grew up in Seoul, Korea. Formerly a lawyer and currently a librarian, she has taught Korean literature, cinema, translation, and interpreting at Rutgers University - New Brunswick.

DAVID KROLIKOSKI is assistant professor of Korean at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

 

Table of Contents

Foreword by David Krolikoski vii
Translator’s Note xi
1 BIRT H OF THE POE T 1
2 MYEONGDONG 11
The Place of Freedom Fighters
3 YONGJEONG 53
The Heart of the Haeran River
4 SONG MONG-GYU
69
5 SEVEN MONTHS IN PYEONGYANG 93
6 RE TURN TO YONGJEONG 115
7 YONHUI JUNIOR
COLLEGE 129
A Station for Youths
8 JAPAN 191
The Place of a Six-Tatami
Room
9 ARREST, TRIAL, IMPRISONMENT, AND DEATH 219
10 HERE
LIES YUN DONG-JU
THE POE T 267
11 THE GLORY OF THE NAT IONAL POE T 277
acknowledgments
303
notes 305
bibliography 323
notes on contributors 329
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