Choi Seung-ja

Choi Seung-ja (; born 1952) is a South Korean poet. Her poetry expresses the melancholy of a person facing death. Some critics have described her work as "the moans of pain by someone who has not been loved" (Kim Hyeon) or as "perceiving a world full of lives that have lost their roots . . . and accepting that the loss of one's roots is a human condition" (Jeong Gwa-ri). Another critic has noted that her poems are "driven by a solitary ego that shuts itself away from a world poisoned by capitalism and resists that world through the language of defiance" (Lee Gwang-ho).

Biography

Choi Seung-ja was born in Yeongi County, South Korea in 1952. She attended high school in Seoul and studied German language and literature at Korea University. She was the editor-in-chief for her school magazine until she was blacklisted for reasons unknown during the Fourth Republic. She was subsequently expelled before she could finish her degree. Following her expulsion, she joined the editing team at a publisher called Hongsungsa, where an alumnus was editor-in-chief. She made her literary debut in 1979 when the journal ''Literature and Intelligenc''e published five of her poems including "Love of This Age" (). She left Hongsungsa after her debut and devoted herself full-time to writing and translation. In 1993, she participated in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. She wrote very little during the 1990s, with ''Yeonindeul'' (연인들 Lovers), a 1999 collection of forty poems, being one of her few publications. Her 2010 poetry collection ''Sseulsseulhaeseo meonameon'' (쓸쓸해서 머나먼 Lonely and Faraway) marked a new beginning in her writing career. In 2010, she won the Jirisan Literature Prize and Daesan Literary Award. In 2017, her poems were published in ''The Guardian''. She has translated '' Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen'' (Thus Spoke Zarathustra), ''Die Welt des Schweigens'' (The World of Silence), ''The Art of Hunger'', and ''The Secret Language of Symbols'' into Korean.

Writing

Choi Seung-ja was one of the most lauded South Korean poets in the 1980s. She portrayed objects, lives, eras, and events using metaphors of the body. Such writing was rooted in self-denial and self-hatred, which she expressed in the form of hostility toward the world. Choi's poetry took on a rebellious character partly in response to the oppression of her gender in a male-dominated society, and partly to the Yusin government of the 1970s and the military dictatorship of the 1980s in South Korea. Her poetry was a scathing testimony of a Dark Age and is still widely read today.

Choi's first poetry collection ''Ishidaeui sarang'' (이 시대의 사랑 Love of This Age), published in 1981, investigates the underlying truth of all objects to find meaning in a life destroyed by society. In her next works—''Jeulgeoun ilgi'' (즐거운 일기 Merry Diary; 1984), ''Gieogui jip'' (기억의 집 House of Memory; 1989), and ''Nae mudeom, pureugo'' (내 무덤, 푸르고 My Tomb, Grave; 1993)—Choi continues to reject the world around her and refuses to compromise. Believing that the fundamental meaning of life is lost, she regards life with despair and denial. She describes herself as "a descendant of darkness, a hypnotized body" or as the "priestess of emptiness." Sometimes such sentiments lead to intense masochism, as seen in verses like "Oh I want to be a dog beaten to death / I want to be a carpet made from the skin of a dog beaten to death."

Choi's poetry has grown less fierce and brutal in the 2010s after her hiatus. Her recent works focus on the ennui of life instead. Nevertheless, they still demonstrate an acute awareness of life and the world.

Works

* <이 시대의 사랑>, 문학과 지성사, 1981
* <즐거운 일기>, 문학과 지성사, 1984
* <기억의 집>, 문학과 지성사, 1989
* <내 무덤, 푸르고>, 문학과 지성사, 1993
* <연인들>, 문학동네, 1999
* <쓸쓸해서 머나먼>, 문학과 지성사, 2010
* <물 위에 씌어진>, 천년의 시작, 2011
* <빈 배처럼 텅 비어>, 문학과 지성사, 2016

Works in translation

* ''Portrait of a Suburbanite: Poems of Choi Seung-ja'' (2015)
* ''Anxiety of words: contemporary poetry by Korean women'' (2006)
* The Guardianbr>Translation Tuesday: Three poems by Choi Seung-ja
*
For the Second Time in Thirty-Three Years
in ''Korean Literature Now'' Summer 2016
* "From Early on, I," "Autumn Like a Dog," "I Remember," "On a Faraway Sea," "A Child," and "A Time Existed" i
Korea Poetry in Translation
English
* El Tiempo Transparente (1996)

Awards

* 2010: Jirisan Literature Prize
* 2010: Daesan Literary Award

Further reading

* 이승원, 「우리 모두 함께 가야할 길-최승자 시집 『기억의 집』」, 『현대시학』, 1989.7.
* 김수경, 「언어와 여자의 집-『기억의 집』, 최승자 저」, 『문학정신』, 1989.9.
* 이광호, 「위반의 시학, 그리고 신체적 사유-최승자를 찾아서」, 『현대시세계』, 1991.2.
* 이상희, 「사랑과 죽음의 전문가-최승자」, 『현대시세계』, 1991.2.
* 정효구, 「최승자 론-죽음과 상처의 시」, 『현대시학』, 1991.5.
* 엄경희, 「여성시에 대한 기대지평의 전환-최승자 시를 중심으로」, 『이화어문론집』, 1994.2.
* 장석주, 「죽음, 아버지, 자궁, 그리고 시쓰기-최승자론」, 『문학과 사회』, 1994.2.
* 박순희, 「최승자 시에 나타난 해체주의적 경향성」, 『성신어문학』, 1995.2.
* 김진수, 「길이 끝난 곳에서 시작되는 길-최승자, 백무산의 시집」, 『문학과 사회』, 1999.5.
* 박주택, 「살아 달이고 우려낸 즙의 시학-최승자 시집, 『연인들』, 최승자 저 ��평��, 『현대시학』, 1999.5.
* 김용희, 「죽음에 대한 시적 승리에 관하여-말의 공간, 죽음의 공간, 최승자의 시 읽기」, 『평택대논문집』, 1999.12.
* 이재복, 「몸과 자궁의 언어-최승자 론」, 『현대시학』, 2002.2.
* 「미 아이오와대 유학 5개월/일기 모음집 펴낸 시인 최승자 씨 ��터뷰��, 『경향신문』, 1995.4.22.
* 「「어떤 나무들은」, 최승자 저 ��효서가 권하는 한권의 책��, 『경향신문』, 1995.7.25.
* 황현산, 「최승자의 「우라누스를 위하여」」, 『한국일보』, 1995.9.5.
* 「 ��가있는아침최승자 돌아와 이제」, 『중앙일보』, 2000.4.27.
* ��이버 지식백과최승자 ��勝子(한국여성문인사전, 2006. 11. 28., 태학사)

References

External links

*
Feminism for All
in ''Korean Literature Now'' Fall 2017
*
The Body in Contemporary Korean Literature
in ''Korean Literature Now'' Summer 2016
*
The Rise of a Modern Sensibility
in ''Korean Literature Now'' Winter 2010
*
Rediscovering the Self Through Lyricism
in ''Korean Literature Now'' Winter 2010

{{DEFAULTSORT:Choi, Seung-ja
1952 births
20th-century South Korean poets
Living people
21st-century South Korean poets
South Korean women poets
21st-century South Korean women writers
21st-century South Korean writers
20th-century South Korean women writers
20th-century South Korean writers
People from South Chungcheong Province
Korea University alumni