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Ko Un (1933-) | |
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Prolific Korean poet, frequently mentioned as a possible recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Ko Un's career has spanned over four decades. He has produced well over 140 volumes of poetry, fiction, essays, and drama. As a voice of the older generation, that experienced the Korean War and the political turmoil in the country during the following decades, Ko Un has been an advocate of civil rights and the reunification of Korea. Ko Un's poetic work has universal, timeless quality, present in the writer's quest to comprehend life, human existence, death, truth, and justice. Where's the mountain I 've just come down? Ko Un was born into a farming family in a small village in North Cholla Province. Nowadays the village where he grew up, is a part of the port city of Kunsan. At an early age, Ku Un already read classical Chinese texts, and in 1945 he started to write poems. Prospects for reunification of Korea after WW II were destroyed by the Korean war 1950-53. Ko Un himself volunteered for the People's Army, but was rejected because he was underweight. However, he witnessed the atrocities of the war, and in 1952 he became a Buddhist monk of the Zen sect. Pian-gamseong, Ko Un's first collection of poems, was published in 1960. After returning to secular life, Ko Un worked for a period as a teacher. During a particularly difficult period in his life in 1970, Ko Un attempted suicide. Ko Un had started as a Modernist, but in the 1970s and 1980s, in an atmosphere of increasing suppression of civil liberties, political concerns entered heavily into Ko Un's work. One of his most famous poems from this period is 'Arrows', in which he wrote: "Transformed into arrows / let's all go, body and soul! / Piercing the air / let's go, body and soul, / with no way of return". (trans. by Brother Anthony) Ko Un was active in the Association of Writers for Practical Freedom, the National Association for Recovery of Democracy, and the Association of National Unity. An outspoken dissident and opponent of the dictatorial rule of President Park Chung-hee, he was jailed several times and also tortured. "This military prison special cell / is a photographer's darkroom. / Without any sunlight I laughed like a fool. / One day it was a coffin holding a corpse. / One day it was altogether the sea. / A wonderful thing! / A few people survive here." (in 'New Year's Full Moon', trans. by Brother Anthony) While in prison, Ko Un decided to compose a poem of every person he had ever met in his life. Part of this on-going work was published in Ten Thousand Lives (2005). As a consequence of his activities and political views, Ko Un's passport was withdrawn. In 1985, Ko Un married Lee Sang-Wha, they had one daughter. Ko Un settled in Ansong, south of Seoul, and started the most prolific period of his literary career. A new democratic constitution was established in 1987, and from the early 1990s, Ko Un was allowed to travel abroad. Ko Un visited in 1992 India - the setting of his novel Little Pilgrim, about Sudhana's spiritual journey through India toward self-discovery - and in 1997 he traveled in the United States and the Himalayas. He served as Chairman of the Association of Korean Arts in 1989-90, and from 1992 to 1994 he was President of the Association of Writers for National Literature. In 1994 he was appointed Resident Professor at the Graduate School of Kyonggi University in Seoul. Ko Un's first volume of poems in English, The Sound of My Waves, appeared in 1992. Beyond Self, with the foreword by Allen Ginsberg, was published in 1997. In 1999, Ko Un taught modern Korean poetry at the University of California, Berkeley. In the 1990s, a dramatic change took place in the cultural life of Korea, and especially the film as art and entertainment started to flourish. Kang Je-Gyu's Shiri (1999) and Park Chan-wook's Joint Security Area (2000) signalled a new attitude toward the demonized North Korea. In 1998 Ko Un visited the reclusive communist state as a member of a delegation. Ko Un's collection of poems, entitled South and North (2000), was inspired by the journey. "Poetry will never die," Ko Un has said. "Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in the distant future, poetry and poets will be united as in the transmigration of souls described in Buddhism." Ko Un's prose works include Hwao-mkyong (1991, Little Pilgrim), based on the Garland Sutra, and the serial Son, about early Zen masters. He has also published biographies on such poets as Han Yong-un and Yi Sang. The first part of Ko Un's autobiography appeared in 1986. Ko Un has been awarded the Korean Literature Prize in 1974 and 1987, the Manhae Literary Prize in 1989, the Chuang Cultural Prize in 1991, and the Daesan Literary Prize in 1994. In 1998 he received the Manhae Grand Prize and next year the Manhae Buddhist Literature Prize. For further reading: South Korean Poets of Resistance by Won Ko (1993); 'From Korean history to Korean poetry: Ko Un and Ku Sang' by An Sonjae, in World Literature Today, June 22, 1997; Voices in Diversity: Poets from Postwar Korea, ed. by Won Ko (2001) - For further information: Ko Un's Life Story ; A Scandinavian View of Ko Un's Poetry ; Ko Un - Selected works in English translation: (NOTE: Selected bibliography is under work!)
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