Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Park Kyng Ree



The novelist Park Kyng Ree passed away. With her famous historical epic Toji, she was beloved by many Koreans and considered as a possible Korean Nobel prize laureate in Literature.
Toji is regarded as a landmark in Korean literature and it covers turbulent phases of modern Korean history, from the Donghak peasant movement in 1894, which led to an anti-government uprising, leading to the country’s liberation from Japan’s colonial rule in 1945. The story travels from Hadong, South Gyeongsang, the home of the novel’s heroine, Seo-hee through the mountains, fields and seas of Busan, Japan, Russia and Seoul. Over 700 characters star in this epic family drama, a story beautifully interwoven with vivid tales of lust and love across the generations.
The novel centers on Seo-hee, a property heiress in Pyeongsari, where the fictional heroine lives, and her quest to win back family land that a relative has stolen. She eventually reclaims her family land, but she learns that the land can never be the possession of man; man is possessed by the land. The first volume of the novel was published in 1969. The novel took 25 years, 16 volumes and five serials to complete.

You can find the article about her here

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