Yun Humyong
{{Short description|South Korean writer (1946–2025)}}
{{family name hatnote|Yun||lang=Korean}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Yun Humyong
| image = Yun Hu-myeong.jpg
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| birth_name = Yun Sang-gyu
| birth_date = {{birth date|1946|01|17}}
| birth_place = Gangneung, Gangwon, US-occupied Korea
| death_date = {{death date and age|2025|5|8|1946|1|17}}
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| language = Korean
| nationality = South Korean
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| alma_mater = Yonsei
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{{Infobox Korean name|child=yes
|hangul=윤후명
|hanja=尹厚明|
|rr=Yun Hu-myeong
|mr=Yun Humyŏng
|hangulborn=윤상규
|hanjaborn=尹尙奎|
|rrborn=Yun Sang-gyu
|mrborn=Yun Sanggyu
}}
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Yun Hu-myong{{efn|This is the author's preferred Romanization per LTI Korea{{cite web |url= http://klti.or.kr/ke_04_03_011.do |title= Author Database |publisher= LTI Korea |access-date=25 December 2013}}}} (January 17, 1946 – May 8, 2025) was a South Korean writer who published poetry, novels, and essays."Yun Hu-myong" LTI Korea Datasheet available at LTI Korea Library or online at: {{cite web|url=http://klti.or.kr/ke_04_03_011.do# |title=Author Database - Korea Literature Translation Institute |access-date=September 3, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130921055413/http://klti.or.kr/ke_04_03_011.do |archive-date=September 21, 2013 }}
Background
Yun was born in the city of Gangneung in Gangwon, South Korea, under the name Yun Sang-gyu. He received his bachelor's degree in philosophy from Yonsei University.{{cite book|title=Who's Who in Korean Literature|chapter=Yu, Hu Myong|pages=553–53|author=Lee, Kyung-ho|publisher=Hollym|location=Seoul|year=1996|isbn=1-56591-066-4}}
Yun died on May 8, 2025, at the age of 79.{{cite web|url=https://m.news.nate.com/view/20250508n44543 |title=소설 '하얀 배' 윤후명 작가 별세…향년 79세 |language=ko |website=m.news.nate.com |last=Kim |first=Jin-joo |publisher=The Korea Times |access-date=May 8, 2025}}
Work
Although he was one of the major Korean writers of the 1980s, Yun's fiction maintains some distance from the dominant trend in Korean fiction of 1980s—the concern with realism as an effective literary tool in rendering contemporary social situations. Instead, what supports Yun's fictional world are individual desire and the power of fantasy. The archetypal situation in Yun's works is that of a man suffering from a sense of ontological lack; deadened by routines of daily life, he immerses himself in fantasy or travel in order to secure what life in the real world has denied him—meaning of existence and genuine engagement with another human being. Often this search hinges on the protagonist's ardent yearning for a woman. The fantasy cannot last, but it is the ceaseless movement away from the vulgar reality that has the potential to resurrect the self from existential insecurity, loneliness, or despair. Such romantic individualism is heightened by the sensitive, lyrical style of writing that reflects Yun's poetic sensibilities.
Yun's novels deal with the relationship between fantasy and reality in individuals' lives. In a similar fashion, his poetry deals with the connection between the profound and the mundane.
Books
- Expert Archer, poetry, (1977)
- Don Juan's Love, novel, (1983)
- Resurrecting Birds, novel, (1985)
- There Is No Ape, novel, (1989)
- To Stars, novel, (1990)
- You, My Bad Darling, essays, (1990)
- The Generation Without Promise, novel, (약속없는 세대)
Awards
His poems were awarded the Kyonghyang Shinmun Literature prize in 1967, Then in 1979, he was awarded the Hankook Ilbo Literary Award for his short stories in 1979. In the 1980s, he received several awards for his fiction.[http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/klt/97fall/yunhumyong.htm KOREAN LITERATURE TODAY Volume 2, No.3, Fall 1997] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929084138/http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/klt/97fall/yunhumyong.htm |date=September 29, 2007}} URL accessed July 29, 2007 In 1995, he was awarded the Yi Sang Literary Prize for White Boat.
References
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Category:People from Gangneung
Category:South Korean novelists
Category:Yonsei University alumni