Author · South Korea
Yi Mun-gu
Died in 2003
Yi Mun-gu was born in 1941 in Boryeong, in South Chungcheong. His father, a local official of the South Korean Workers' Party, and two of his brothers died during the Korean War; according to his entry at the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, his mother died soon afterwards, and he became a young head of the family. He studied writing at the Sorabeol School of Arts, from which he graduated in 1963, and Kim Tong-ni, his teacher, recommended him to the magazine Hyundae Munhak. Founder in 1974 of a writers' association for freedom, he chaired in 1999 the one that succeeded it. He died of stomach cancer in 2003.