Ko Un (South Korea) 1933
The South Korean poet Ko Un was born Ko Untae
on August 1,1933. He grew up in a peasant family living in Gensan in the North
Jeolla Province during a time with the national culture was suppressed under
the Japanese occupation.
His
grandfather taught him to read and write Korean, however, and he had also
learned Chinese by the age of 8. By chance he discovered a book of poems by the
nomadic Korean poet suffering leprosy, Han Ha-un whose work so impressed Ko that
he began writing poetry himself.
He
was only a teenager when the Korean War broke out in 1950. Many of his
relatives and friends were killed, and in order survive he was forced to work
as a grave digger, which so traumatized him during the heavy shelling of the war
that he poured acid into one ear to drown out the noise.
In
1952 he decided to become a Buddhist monk and began writing books, publishing Otherworld
Sensibility (1960) and his first work of fiction, Cherry Tree in Another
World (1961).
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During the years of 1963-66 he lived on the remote island of Jeju-do
where he ran a charity school. He returned to Seoul, but having become
alcoholic and frustrated with life, he attempted suicide in 1971.
By
chance, however, he picked up a newspaper from the floor of a bar and read
about a young textile-worker, Jeon Tae-il, who had set himself on fire as
demonstration of his support of worker’s rights, which led Ko into social
activism.
When the South Korean government tried to curb democratic rights by
putting the Yusin Constitution into law in 1972, he became involved with the
democracy movement, helping to lead efforts to improve the political situation.
In 1974 he helped to establish the Association of Writers for Practical Freedom
and became a representative of the National Association for the Recovery of
Democracy. In 1978 he was made vice-chairman of the Korean Association of Human
Rights and of the Association of National Unity in 1979.
Several times Ko was imprisoned, beaten, and tortured. In May of 1980,
during the coup d’état led by Chun Doo-hwan, he was accused of treason and
sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment, being released in 1982 as part of the
general pardon.
In 1963 he married professor of English Literature Lee Shang-Wha, who
eventually became one of Ko’s major co-translators along with Brother Anthony.
Moving
to Anseong, Gyeonggi-do, Ko now chose devote his life to writing, becoming
chairman of the Association of Korean Artists (1989-90) and President of the
Association of Writers for National Literature (1992-93). Since 1958 Ko has
written more than 155 volumes of poetry, fiction, autobiography, drama, essays,
travel books, and translations, his work being translated into several languages.
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One of his central works is Maninbo (Ten Thousand Lives),
a monumental poetic undertaking now consisting of 30 volumes in which he has
attempted to write about every person he has ever met. As he observes, “I’m
inhabited by a lament for the dead. I have this calling to bring back to life
all those who have died…I bear the dead with me still, and they write through
me.” Using the rhythms of everyday speech and engaging in biographical and
social issues, his work has been compared to Charles Reznikoff’s Testimony.
Among Ko’s works of fiction include The Garland Sutra or Little
Pilgrim (1991), Son: Two Volumes (1995), and Mount Sumi
(1999.
Ko has won numerous literary awards, among them the Korean Literature
Prize (1974, 1987), the Daesan Literary Prize (1993), the Manhae Prize for
Poetry (1998), the Eungwan Order of Cultural Merit (2002), the Bjørnson Prize
Order of Literature (2005), The Griffin Poetry Prize Lifetime Recognition Award
(2008), the America Award for a Lifetime Contribution to World Literature (2011),
the NordSud International Prize for literature (2014), and the New Golden Age
Poetry Prize at the Mexico City Poetry Festival (2018). He has often been nominated
for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
In February of 2018, a poem titled “The Beast,” written by Choe Yeogmi,
featured a fictional character who was accused of gross sexual misconduct. Many
readers immediately identified the figure as Ko, and other women came forward
charging him with similar allegations of groping. Without a public trial or even
a national hearing, Ko’s poems were pulled from South Korean textbooks, a show
cancelled at the Seoul Library, and his legacy in general was much diminished.
Most of these accusations concerning the then 80-some year-old poet have never
been fully substantiated and have been denied by the poet. Some countries ceased
publishing his work, but in the US his publisher, Green Integer continues to
release his books, arguing whatever his personal behavior, his literary
contributions remain of significant importance to world literature.
SELECTED BOOKS OF POETRY IN ENGLISH
Morning Dew: Selected Poems, trans. by Bro. Roger (Paper Bark Press, 1996); The Sound of My
Waves: Selected Poems 1960-1990, trans. by Brother Anthony and Young-moo
Kim (Cornell East Asia Series/DapGae, 1996); Beyond Self: 108 Korean Zen
Poems, trans.by Young-moo Kim and Brother Anthony (Berkeley: Parallax
Press, 1997, Reprinted as What?: 108 Zen Poems); Traveler Maps: Poems
of Ko Un, trans. by David McCann (Tamal Vista, 2004); Ten Thousand Lives
(selections from 1-10 Maninbo), trans. by Brother Anthony, Young-moo
Kim, and Gary Gach (Los Angeles, Green Integer, 2005); The Three-Way Tavern:
Selected Poems, tans. By Clare You and Richard Silberg(Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2006); Flowers of a Moment, trans. by
Brother Anthony, Young-moo Kim, and Gary Gach (Rochester, New York, 2006); Songs
for Tomorrow: A Collection of Poems
1960-2002, trans. by Brother Anthony and Gary Gach (Los Angeles: Green
Integer, 2008); Himalaya Poems, trans. by Brother Anthony and Lee Sang-Wha
(Los Angeles: 2011); This Side of Time, tans. By Clare You and Richard
Silberg (White Pine Press, 2012); First Person Sorrowful, trans. by
Brother Anthony and Lee Sang-Wha(England: Bloodaxe Books, 2012); Maninbo:
Peace and War (selections from volumes 11-20), trans. by Brother Anthony
and Lee-Sang-Wha (England: Bloodaxe Books, 2015); Ten Thousand Lives: Selections
from Maninbo 21-25), trans. by Brother Anthony and Lee Sang-Wha (Los
Angeles: Green Integer, 2021); Ten-Thousand Lives: Selections fromManinbo26-30), trans. by Brother Anthony and Lee Sang-Wha (Los Angeles: Green
Integer, 2023)
Go here for a selections of poems, go here: