Ri Ki-yong

Ri Ki-Yong (리기영 in North Korean orthography, 이기영 in South Korean orthography) was a DPRK novelist.^[1]

Life

Ri Ki-Yong was born in Asan, Chunchongnam-do in Korea. He wrote under the name Minchon. Ri attended the Seiisku School of English in Tokyo, Japan, He worked as a member of KAPF in 1925 and was the organizer of the Choson Proletarian Wrtiers' Federation in Seoul as well as the leader of the North Choson Federation of Literature and Arts.^[2] 1926, he served as an editor of Light of Joseon (Joseon jigwang), an organ of the Korean Communist Party and a journal promoting proletarian literature. Lee Giyeong spent more than two years in jail.^[3]

After liberation from Korean colonial rule, Ri moved to North Korea where he was key in creating the orthodox position on literature in North Korea, serving for several years in a key position in North Korean Federation of Literature and Arts. He is reported to have died in August of 1988.^[4]

Work

The Korea Literature Translation Institute summarizes his contributions to literature:

One of the leading writers to emerge from the proletarian literature camp, Lee Giyeong explored miserable lives of peasants exploited by their landlords and oppressed by colonial capitalism. Flood (Hongsu) and Rat Fire (Seohwa) represent quintessential “peasant literature” and describe the reality of rural hardships through the proletarian perspective. Seohwa, in particular, makes a keen observation of the dual nature of peasants as part of proletarian class as well as propertied class. While the debate concerning peasant literature at the time focused on defining the relationship between peasants and the urban proletariat, Lee Giyeong proposed that the peasants, under the colonial capitalism, is no longer a unified class. His works identify the extremely poor peasantry, equipped with anti-imperialist perspective through their firsthand experiences with oppression, as the suitable comrade to the proletariat in class struggles. His views are perfected in his landmark novel Hometown (Gohyang), first serialized in The Chosun Ilbo. Hometown (Gohyang), like Lee Gwangsu's Dust (Heuk) and Shim Hun's The Evergreen (Sangnoksu), focuses on intellectuals who return to their hometown and devote their lives to the project of enlightening oppressed peasants.^[5]

Works in Translation

German

• Heimat (고향)

Works

• Seohwa〈서화〉
• Ingan suop〈인간수업〉
• Kohyang 〈고향〉Home village 1934
• Shin gaeji〈신개지〉「新開地」 Newly ploughed land serialised
• Ddang〈땅〉Soil, 1949
• Tuman gang〈두만강〉, Tumen River
• Bom〈봄〉Springtime serialised in the Dong-A Ilbo 1940

^[6][7][8]

References

See also

• Korean literature