Lee Yun-gi (, May 3, 1947 – August 27, 2010) is a prize-winning modern South Korean writer and translator.

Life

Lee Yun-gi was born in

North Gyeongsang Province North Gyeongsang Province (, ) is a province in eastern South Korea, and with an area of , it is the largest province in the Korean peninsula. The province was formed in 1896 from the northern half of the former Gyeongsang province, and remaine ...

southern Korea South Korea is located in East Asia, on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula located out from the far east of the Asian landmass. The only country that shares a land border with South Korea is North Korea, lying to the north with of ...

, on May 5, 1947. Although Lee Yun-gi (1947~ ) made his official literary debut in 1977 and published his first collection of short stories, White Helicopter in 1988, it was not until the mid-1990s that he gained recognition as a fiction writer. For the first twenty years of his career, Lee was better known as a prolific translator and by the time his first novel, The Gates of Heaven, appeared in 1994, he had translated and published over 150 works including

Umberto Eco Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian Medieval studies, medievalist, philosopher, Semiotics, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular ...

The Name of the Rose ''The Name of the Rose'' ( ) is the 1980 debut novel by Italian author Umberto Eco. It is a historical fiction, historical murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327, and an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, ...

and

Foucault's Pendulum ''Foucault's Pendulum'' (original title: ''Il pendolo di Foucault'' ) is a novel by Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco. It was first published in 1988, with an English translation by William Weaver being published a year later. The bo ...

."Lee Yun-gi" LTI Korea Datasheet available at LTI Korea Library or online at: http://klti.or.kr/ke_04_03_011.do#

Work

Lee Yun-gi utilizes his knowledge of

mythology Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

to build narratives rich in symbols and metaphors. His background in translating, which requires attention to the exact meaning of each word, gives his language precision and accuracy. His writing contains a great deal of dialogue. Although Korean writers tend to focus more on descriptions than dialogues, Lee Yun-gi relies much on dialogues to drive his narrative forward. His dialogues are pithy but meaningful and so dynamic that the readers often imagine themselves listening to a real conversation. In his works, Lee focuses on understanding various forms of life through communication with others and thereby embraces life. Lee's attitude toward life is marked by a sense of generosity and optimism. He does not complain about life's cruelties, become frustrated by hardships or despair over the baseness of human nature. Rather than exposing the problems in life, he concentrates on resolving them through his work. Lee often uses aphorisms—old ones reshaped or new ones penned by the author and strategically placed throughout the text—that attempt to express a certain universal truth about life. Another characteristic of Lee's fiction is humor and wit. The comedy of a given situation is brought to life through the author's multi-layered style of writing that initially delays understanding and then allows his characters an epiphanic moment later on. Lee draws freely from his knowledge of both eastern and western history, mythologies and culture. In 1998 Lee won the Dong-in Literature Prize and in 2008 he won the Daesan Literature Award and the Korean Translation Award.

Works in Korean (Partial)

Short Story Collections * White Helicopter (Hayan hellikopteo) (1977), Seeing One Road, * Seeing Two Roads (Oegil bogi, dugil bogi) * Butterfly Necktie (Nabi nektai) (1995) Novels * Gate to Heaven (Haneurui mun) (1994) * Sunlight and Moonlight (Haetbitgwa dalbit)(1996) * An Offspring of Love (Sarangui jongja) * House Where Trees Pray (Namuga gidohaneun jip)(1999) Essay Collections * School for Adults (Eoreunui hakgyo) * Rainbow and Prism (Mujigaewa peuriseum) Translations *

(Jangmiui ireum) * Foucault's Pendulum (Pukoui jinja), *

The Island of the Day Before ''The Island of the Day Before'' () is a 1994 historical fiction novel by Umberto Eco set in the 17th century during the historical search for the secret of longitude. The central character is Roberto della Griva, an Italian nobleman stranded on ...

(Jeonnarui seom) by Umberto Eco * Shamanism (Shamaniseum) by Mircen Eliade * Metamorphoses (Byeonsin iyagi) by Ovid * Men and Symbols (Ingangwa sangjing) by Carl Jung

Awards

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

(1998) *

Daesan Literary Awards The Daesan Literary Awards () are one of the most prestigious literary awards in South Korea. Prizes are awarded annually to selected works of poetry, fiction, drama, literary criticism, and translation. As of 2016, each prize includes a monetary ...

(2008) * Korean Translation Award (2008)

References

External links

두산백과 이윤기 (Lee Yun-gi)

Doosan Encyclopedia ''Doosan Encyclopedia'' () is a Korean-language encyclopedia published by Doosan Donga (). The encyclopedia is based on the ''Dong-A Color Encyclopedia'' (), which comprises 30 volumes and began to be published in 1982 by Dong-A Publishing (). ...

한국현대문학대사전 이윤기 (Lee Yun-gi)한국현대문학대사전
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Yun-gi 1947 births 2010 deaths 20th-century South Korean writers South Korean translators 20th-century translators