Cho Se-hui (20 August 1942 – 25 December 2022) was a South Korean author.

Early life

Cho Sehui was born in

Gapyeong Gapyeong County is a county in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. It was the scene of the Battle of Kapyong, a major battle of the Korean War. Administrative Region and Language Gapyeong County has one eup and five myeon, and its population i ...

Gyeonggi-do Gyeonggi-do (, ) is the most populous province in South Korea. Its name, ''Gyeonggi'', means "京 (the capital) and 畿 (the surrounding area)". Thus, ''Gyeonggi-do'' can be translated as "Seoul and the surrounding areas of Seoul". Seoul, the na ...

on 20 August 1942. Cho attended

Seorabeol Art College Chung-Ang University (CAU; ) is a private research university in Seoul, South Korea. It is widely regarded as one of the best universities in South Korea. The university operates two campuses: main campus located in Dongjak District, Seoul, and ...

and

Kyunghee University Kyung Hee University (abbreviated to KHU) (Hangul: 경희대학교; Hanja: 慶熙大學校) is a private research university in South Korea with campuses in Seoul and Suwon. Founded in 1949, it is widely regarded as one of the best universities ...

in Seoul. Cho was a member of the so-called "

hangul The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The ...

generation," which was called that because its members were the first to be educated in the

Korean language Korean (South Korean: , ''hangugeo''; North Korean: , ''chosŏnmal'') is the native language for about 80 million people, mostly of Koreans, Korean descent. It is the official language, official and national language of both North Korea and So ...

(the previous years had been under Japanese domination and language, and before the colonial period most scholars had studied

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...

Work

Cho's writing is sparse and explicit, though it can also seem surreal. His most famous work is '' The Dwarf.'' ''The Dwarf'' is a yŏnjak sosŏl (linked novel) or collection of separately published short stories which can stand alone or supplement each other. This fractured structure, along with Cho's jump-cutting, juxtapositional, and un-sign-posted narrative portrays a society that "severs men from the natural rhythms and shape of creation." It is a powerful work of social criticism focusing on the forced redevelopment of

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the Capital city, capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the North Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea ...

in the 1970s, and the human costs that accompanied it. It combines biting realism with an often fantastic structure that pulls a reader into the difficult and fragmented era the work describes. Cho combines a kaleidoscopic narrative approach, powerful use of scientific symbols, and a dead-flat and deadeye narrative tone. Reading ''The Dwarf'' requires some attention, but the interlocking narrative arcs and often disconcerting internal shifts in narrator or time frame are both supportive of the theme of the book and ultimately rewarding. Koreans consider this work to be one of the critical works of the 1970s.Peter H. Lee, ed. A History of Korean Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2003), p. 477.

Works in translation

*
The Dwarf
' University of Hawaii Press (October 2006); translated by Ju-chan and

Bruce Fulton Bruce Fulton is an American professor of Korean Literature and a noted translator of contemporary Korean fiction with an extensive list of publications. He has lived in the United States, Canada, and South Korea, and is married to fellow translat ...

*''The Voice of the Governor-General and Other Stories of Modern Korea'' (Contributor) Eastbridge (June 2002) *''City of Machines'' Korea Journal Vol.30 No.3 March 1990 pp. 68–74 *''On the Overhead Bridge'' Korea Journal Vol.20 No.10 October 1980 pp. 30–35 *''Der Zwerg'' (난장이가 쏘아올린 작은 공 ) *''одой хуний хθθРґθсн БяцхАН БθмБθлθґ'' (난장이가 쏘아올린 작은 공) *''A Törpe'' (난장이가 쏘아올린 작은 공) *''La Petite balle lancée par un nain'' (난장이가 쏘아올린 작은 공)

Works in Korean

* '' The Dwarf'' (1978) * ''Time Travel'' (1983) * ''Root of Silence'' (1985)

Awards

Dong-in Literary Award The Dong-in Literary Award ( ko, 동인문학상) is a South Korean literary award named after novelist Kim Dong-in, established in order to praise the literary achievement of The Republic of Korea. In commemoration of the Korean modern literature ...

(1979)

References

External links

The Dwarf, by Cho Se-hui
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jo, Se-hui 1942 births 2022 deaths South Korean novelists Kyung Hee University alumni People from Gapyeong County Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea