Richard E. Kim
Richard E. Kim | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Richard Eun Kook Kim 1932 Kankō, Kankyōnan-dō, Korea, Empire of Japan |
| Died | 2009 (aged 76–77) Massachusetts, USA |
| Occupation |
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| Nationality | Korean, American |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Education | Middlebury College Johns Hopkins University Iowa Writers' Workshop Harvard University |
| Notable works | The Martyred The Innocent Lost Names |
| Notable awards | Guggenheim Fellowship NEA Fellowship Ford Foundation Fellowship |
| Korean name | |
| Hangul | 김은국 |
| Hanja | 金恩國 |
| RR | Gim Eunguk |
| MR | Kim Ŭn'guk |
 Literature portal | |
Richard Eun Kook Kim (1932–2009) was a Korean–American writer and professor of literature. He was the author of The Martyred (1964), The Innocent (1968), and Lost Names (1970), and many other works. He was a Guggenheim Fellow (1966) and was a recipient of a Fulbright grant. His most popular work is Lost Names, a fictional work based on his experience during the Japanese colonization of Korea.[citation needed]
Biography
Kim Eun Kook, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was born in 1932 in Hamhung, South Hamgyong, a city in what is now North Korea. He was raised first in Korea, then Manchukuo, and then Korea again. His childhood consisted of living during the tail end of the Japanese occupation. After serving in the Republic of Korea Marine Corps and Army, 1950–54, he was honorably discharged as first lieutenant of the Infantry in 1954 and came to the United States in 1955.[age 23]
He was educated at Middlebury College in Vermont, where he studied political science and history, 1955–59; at Johns Hopkins University (M.A. in writing, 1960); at the University of Iowa's Writers Workshop (M.F.A. 1962); and at Harvard University (M.A. in Far Eastern languages and literature, 1963).
Career
The Martyred, Kim's first novel, is about the Korean War, which would be made into a play, an opera, and a film. It was also nominated for a National Book Award. It was followed by The Innocent (1968), about politics in postwar South Korea, and Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood (1970), a collection of stories.
His academic experience included various professorships in English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Syracuse University, San Diego State University, and at Seoul National University, where he was a Fulbright professor, 1981–83.
He received a Ford Foundation Foreign Area Fellowship (1962–63), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1966), the First Award, Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards (1974), a National Endowment for the Arts Literary Fellowship (1978–79), and other awards and honors.
His published original works include the novels The Martyred (1964), The Innocent (1968) and Lost Names (1970); a children's story, "A Blue Bird" (in Korean, 1983); "In Search of Lost Years" (in Korean, 1985), and "Lost Koreans in China and the Soviet Union: Photo-Essays" (1989). His television work, for KBS-TV of Seoul, includes "200 Years of Christianity in Korea" (1981), "The Korean War" (1983), "On Japan" (1984), "Reflections on the Wartime Massacres" (1985), "A Passage to Manchuria" (1987), "In Search of Lost Koreans in the Soviet Union" (1988), and "The Great Trans-Siberian Railway" (1989). He was a columnist for The Korea Herald and The Chosun Ilbo (Korea Daily) in Seoul, 1981–84.
Family and life experiences have played a huge role as inspiration for his writing. His father is the more influential of these, and Kim has described his father as a saint.[1] His father is also a major character in his book Lost Names (1970).
Books
- The Martyred. Originally published in 1964; reissued by Penguin Classics, 2011.
- The Innocent. 1968.
- Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood. Originally published in 1970; reissued by University of California Press in 1998; special 40th anniversary edition issued in 2011 with new preface.
The Martyred
After twelve Christian ministers are found dead, allegedly at the hand of the Communists, Captain Lee, the narrator, is sent to interview the two survivors. Lee hopes one of them, Reverend Shin, will confess to betraying his colleagues, which Lee could use to discredit the Communists and arouse the support of the Korean Christians for the war. Although Shin is innocent—in fact, he was spared because unlike the others, he refused to denounce his faith—he falsely confesses to the betrayal and, after being "forgiven", becomes a popular preacher who deliberately preserves the people's false image of the fallen ministers as "martyrs", recognizing that his parishioners are already burdened beyond their abilities by the war and that he loves them too much to destroy their faith.
The novel also addresses larger questions about the war and about Korean Christianity, about the juxtaposition between the large-scale suffering of the public during wartime and the individual aspects of faith, hope, confession, etc. Although the story is built around the twelve murdered ministers, Kim returns to the suffering of the innocent Koreans as a whole, thus implicitly posing the question of whether the people of Korea are just as much "martyrs" as the twelve murdered men.[2]
The novel was immensely popular, staying on the New York Times Bestseller List for twenty weeks and being translated into ten languages.[3] It was a nominee for the National Book Award[4] and for the Nobel Prize in Literature[dubious – discuss].[3]
The Innocent
Kim brings back characters from The Martyred in this novel set around a fictional coup d'état in South Korea (such as the one that occurred in 1961) and about the ethical dilemma encountered by a group of army officers as they realize that morality may require them to do horrific deeds. Major Lee (the captain of the previous novel) wants to use peaceful means to change the corrupt civilian government, believing that violence cannot be used to end violence. But after removing General Ham, the other conspirators want to punish him with execution. Lee is contrasted by his friend Colonel Min, the group leader who prefers more forceful methods, and as the events spiral beyond the control of the conspirators, Min separates himself from Lee's calls for non-violence; still, after the coup's success, Min acknowledges to Lee that Lee's focus on remaining innocent, even if it is unrealistic, prevents Min from being seen as anything other than a murderer.[5]
In this novel Kim reflects on the difficulty not only of rebuilding the nation after a horrific war, but also of maintaining one's innocence amidst so much corruption and in the face of the continued momentum of wartime violence.[5] This novel was not as successful as The Martyred, perhaps because it was published during protests against the Vietnam War, and enthusiasm for Kim decreased as a result.[3]
Lost Names
A fictional book about Kim's experiences during the Japanese occupation of Korea. However, when discussing the fictional and nonfictional aspects of his book, Kim stated "All the characters and events described in this book are real, but everything else is fiction..." Kim's experiences are not always the most uplifting, but Kim does not intend the book to be interpreted as anti-Japanese. The title Lost Names was translated very differently into the Korean language. The "Lost" on the title to the Koreans meant "forcibly taken away", but Kim does not desire for that to be the depiction of the title, he simply meant lost.
His favorite scene in Lost Names is the chapter "Once Upon a Time, on a Sunday." The scene is when the boy is looking up at the night sky realizing everything going on is insignificant compared to the vastness and possibilities the night sky represents.
References
- "Lost Names: Scenes From a Korean Boyhood". www.asian-studies.org. Archived from the original on January 26, 2011.
- "The Martyred", Encyclopedia of Asian-American Literature, ed. Seiwoong Oh, 2007, pp.181–182.
- Montye P. Fuse. "Richard E. Kim". In Guiyou Huang (ed.). Asian American autobiographers: a bio-bibliographical critical sourcebook. p. 162.
- Jae-Nam Han (1996). "Korean-American Literature". In Alpana Sharma Knippling (ed.). New immigrant literatures in the United States: a sourcebook to our multicultural literary heritage. p. 146.
- "The Innocent", Encyclopedia of Asian-American Literature, ed. Seiwoong Oh, 2007, pp. 125–126.
External links
- Richard E. Kim at the UCLA website
- Richard E. Kim at Answers.com
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김은국 (소설가)
김은국 金恩國 Richard Eunkook Kim | |
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| 대한민국 국방부 정훈국 예하 영어통역장교 (大韓民國 國防部 政訓局 隸下 英語通譯將校) | |
| 임기 | 1951년 8월 15일 ~ 1952년 2월 29일 |
| 대통령 | 이승만 대한민국 대통령 |
| 부통령 | 김성수 대한민국 부통령 |
| 총리 | 장면 대한민국 국무총리 허정 대한민국 국무총리 서리 |
| 장관 | 이기붕 대한민국 국방부 장관 |
| 차관 | 김일환 대한민국 국방부 차관 |
| 이름 | |
| 별명 | 미국 이름은 Richard Eunkook Kim |
| 신상정보 | |
| 출생일 | 1932년 3월 13일 |
| 출생지 | 일제강점기 함경남도 함흥 |
| 사망일 | 2009년 6월 23일(77세) |
| 사망지 | 미국 매사추세츠주 슐츠베리 |
| 경력 | 미국에 귀화하여 소설가 활약 미국 캘리포니아 주립대학교 교수 대한민국 서울대학교 특임교수 |
| 정당 | 무소속 |
| 본관 | 수안 |
| 부모 | 김찬도(부) |
| 배우자 | 페넬로페 안나 그롤 |
| 친인척 | 이옥현(외사촌 누나) 이인범(외사촌 형) 이인근(외사촌 형) |
| 종교 | 개신교 |
| 군사 경력 | |
| 복무 | 대한민국 육군 |
| 복무기간 | 1951년 7월 ~ 1954년 12월 |
| 근무 | 육군 수도사단 |
| 최종계급 | 대한민국 육군 중위 |
| 지휘 | 통역장교, 정훈장교 |
김은국(金恩國, 영어: Richard Eunkook Kim 리처드 연쿡 킴[*], 미국명 : 리처드 김, 1932년 3월 13일 ~ 2009년 6월 23일)은 대한민국 국방부 정훈국 예하 영어통역장교 등을 지낸 후 예비역 대한민국 육군 중위로 전역한 한국계 미국인 소설가이다. 본관은 수안이다.
생애
1932년 일제강점기 함경남도 함흥에서 독립운동가 김찬도(金燦道)의 차남으로 출생하였고 지난날 한때 황해도 황주와 평안남도 진남포를 거쳐 만주국 지린성 지린에서 잠시 유아기를 보낸 적이 있는 그는 1936년 일제 강점기 조선국 평안남도 평양에 귀환하여 그 후 평양고등보통학교에 다니다가 일제 패망 후인 1947년에 월남하여 전라남도 목포에 정착했다. 이후 목포고등학교를 졸업하고 서울대학교 경제학과에 입학했다. 한국 전쟁으로 인하여 학업을 중단하고 대한민국 육군에 입대, 통역장교를 거쳐 정훈장교로 복무한 뒤 1954년 예편하였다. 군복무 당시 아서 트루도 미 육군 소장의 부관으로 근무했던 인연으로 트루도 소장의 추천과 도움을 받아 1955년 미국으로 이민하여 미들버리 대학교에서 공부하였고, 1960년 존스 홉킨스 대학교에서 문학으로 석사학위를, 1962년 아이오와 대학교의 작가 워크숍에서 인문과학 석사 학위를, 1963년 하버드 대학교에서 극동 언어와 문학 석사 학위를 받았다.
1960년 미국에서 덴마크계 미국 여성 페닐로프 앤 그롤과 결혼하였고, 이 무렵 미국 시민권을 취득하였다.
1964년 미국에서 한국 전쟁 당시의 한 목사의 이야기를 담은 소설 《순교자》(The Martyred)를 영문으로 써서 발표하였다. 《순교자》는 1965년도 ‘내셔널 북 어워드(National Book Award)’ 최종심사에 올랐으며, 20주 연속 미주 베스트셀러가 되었고 독일어 등 20개 언어로 번역되었으며 평단으로부터도 호평을 받았다. 1965년에 유현목 감독에 의해 한국에서 영화화되기도 했다. 이런 호평들로 인해 1967년 노벨 문학상 후보로 추천되기도 했다. 1968년에는 5·16 군사정변을 소재로 한 《심판자》(The Innocent)를, 1970년 창씨개명을 소재로 한 《잃어버린 이름》(Lost Names)을 발표하였다.
1981년 대한민국으로 건너와 지난날 자신이 중퇴를 한 서울대학교에서 특임교수로 출강, 1982년부터 1983년까지 1년간 강의를 하였고, 그 이후에는 KBS에서 다큐멘터리 원고를 집필하였다. 1989년부터 여러 차례 동서식품의 커피 광고에 출연하여 '가슴이 따뜻한 사람과 만나고 싶다'라는 광고 문구로 유명해지기도 했다.
이후로 활동을 완전히 중단하고 미국에서 은둔 생활을 했다. 2005년 매사추세츠주에서 암 투병을 하고 있다는 사실이 알려졌고, 2009년 사망하였다.
가족 및 친척 관계
학력
- 평안남도 평양고등보통학교 수료 (1982년 재경 대한민국 평양고보 동문회에서 수여하는 평양고보 명예 졸업장 받음.)
- 전라남도 목포고등보통학교 졸업
- 서울대학교 상과대학 경제학과 중퇴
- 대한민국 육군보병학교 졸업
- 미국 미들버리 대학교 역사학, 정치학 전공 (학사학위는 받지 못함)
- 미국 존스 홉킨스 대학교 대학원 정치학과 정치학 석사
- 미국 아이오와 주립대학교 대학원 언어학과 인문과학 석사
- 미국 하버드 대학교 대학원 영어영문학과 문학석사
작품
- 《순교자》(The Martyred, 1964)
- 《심판자》(The Innocent, 1968)
- 《잃어버린 이름》(Lost Names, 1970)
- 《소련과 중국, 그리고 잃어버린 동족들》(1989)
CF
- 동서식품 맥심
참고 문헌
- 김욱동 (2005년 3월). “‘순교자’작가 김은국의 행적을 찾아서”. 《신동아》 (546): 316-330. ISSN 1228-3436.
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