Choi Eun-mi 'Person Made of Eyes'...The 54th Hankook Ilbo Literary Award

Novelist Choi Eun-mi, Photo by Munhakdongne

Author Choi Eun-mi's short story collection People Made of Snow has been selected as the winner of the 54th Hankook Ilbo Literary Award. People Made of Snow is a collection that completes a fierce awareness of issues surrounding women, family, and society with an explosive and original narrative of its own, rather than conventional representation. The judges described it as "a work that offers an overwhelming reading experience with intense passion."

Choi was born in 1978 in Inje, Gangwon Province. She began her literary career in 2008 when her short story Crying and Leaving won the Hyundai Literature New Writer Award. She has published the short story collections A Dream Too Beautiful, Magnolia Chronicles, the novella Yesterday Was Spring, and the novel The Ninth Wave. She received the Daesan Literary Award in 2018 and the Hyundai Literature Award in 2021.

The Hankook Ilbo Literary Award is given to the work that achieves the most outstanding literary accomplishment in a year. This year’s judging was based on Korean novels published between September of last year and August of this year. The judges?novelists Eun Hee-kyung, Kang Young-sook, and Lee Ki-ho; literary critics Kwon Hee-chul, Kim Na-young, and Han Young-in; and poet Lee Geun-hwa?selected the winner through preliminary and final rounds.

The award ceremony will be held on the 16th of next month at 5 p.m. in the main conference room on the basement first floor of the Severance Building at Yonsei University in Jung-gu, Seoul. The winner will receive a prize of 20 million won and a plaque.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.