Baek Sok

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Baek Sok
Chosŏn'gŭl 백기행
Hancha 白夔行
McCune-Reischauer Paek Kihaeng
Revised Romanization Baek Gi-haeng
Pen name
Chosŏn'gŭl 백석
Hancha 白石 also 白奭
McCune-Reischauer Paek Sŏk
Revised Romanization Baek Seok

Baek Sok (July 1, 1912 - c. January 1995), born Paek Kihaeng, was a North Korean poet.

He was born in Chŏngju in North Pyongan, and made his literary debut in 1936 with a collection of poems entitled Deer (사슴, Sasŭm). Thereafter he published about 50 more pieces, but is not believed to have produced another collection of poems. He enjoyed making use of the unique Pyongan dialect in his writing, but after the division of Korea, the dialect-suppression policies of North Korea prevented him from being very active.

In South Korea, the publication of his works was prohibited since he was a North Korean poet, but he was widely re-evaluated after his works were first introduced to the South in 1987. He is now regarded as having opened a new face of Korean modernism from his own perspective, while using Pyongbuk dialect and relics of the past as his subject matter and founding his work on local sentiment.

South Koreans long believed that Baek Sok had died on a collective farm in 1963. However, recently it was revealed that he lived until 1995. [1]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ 시인 백석, 1995년까지 생존

[edit] References

Ko, Hyung-jin (1996). "Baek Sok", Who's who in Korean literature. Seoul: Hollym, 19-21. ISBN 1565910664. 

[edit] See also