Daesan Literary Award Poet Kang Eun-gyo "I Cried My Eyes Out Thinking About My Last Poetry Collection..."

Announcement of the Four Winners of the 32nd Daesan Literary Awards

"I published a poetry collection last July and thought it might be time to stop writing poetry, that it could be my last collection, so I cried my heart out..."

The poetry collection that poet Kang Eun-gyo thought might be her last, Mirai Super Yeop Hwansanggage (The Fantasy Shop Next to Mirai Super), was awarded this year's Daesan Literary Award. At the 32nd Daesan Literary Award winners' press conference held on the 5th at the Kyobo Building in Gwanghwamun, Seoul, Kang Eun-gyo said, "After publishing Mirai Super Yeop Hwansanggage, I fell into despair beyond helplessness," adding, "Being selected for the Daesan Literary Award was an event that gave me tremendous literary energy."

Having written poetry for 56 years, the poet is now approaching her eighties. She expressed mixed feelings of apology and complexity about receiving the award while there are many younger poets. Despite crying her heart out, she said she has already planned her future poetry and intends to write just two more poetry collections. "I plan to write only poems that I can keep in my drawer without polluting the world."

The Daesan Literary Award is a comprehensive literary prize that selects and awards works of significant value representing Korean literature in poetry, novels, plays, criticism, and translation. The play and criticism categories are awarded biennially, so winners are chosen in four categories each year. The translation category rotates among English, French, German, and Spanish. This year, the criticism and Spanish translation categories were judged.

This year’s winners include Kang Eun-gyo, Honorary Professor at Dong-A University, for poetry with Mirai Super Yeop Hwansanggage; Kim Hee-seon for the novel category with her full-length novel 247-ui Modeun Geot (Everything About 247); Seo Young-chae, Professor at Seoul National University, for criticism with the critical journal Ujeong-ui Jeongwon (Garden of Friendship); and ?lvaro Trigo Maldonado for the translation category for his Spanish translation of Jeong Bora’s novel Jeojutokki (The Cursed Rabbit).

From the left, Eun-Kyo Kang, Honorary Professor at Dong-A University, Hee-Seon Kim, Writer, Young-Chae Seo, Professor at Seoul National University [Photo courtesy of Daesan Foundation]

Kim Hee-seon, selected in the novel category, graduated from the Department of Pharmacy and works as a pharmacist while writing novels. She debuted in 2011 by winning the New Writer Award from Writer’s World and has received the 16th Heo Gyun Literary Award in 2024 and the 10th Young Writers Award in 2019. Kim said, "I have written with the belief that a novelist’s duty is to listen to those without a voice," adding, "The Daesan Cultural Award confirmed that the path I am on is right, giving me great courage, and I vow to continue listening to the voices of the voiceless as a writer."

Kim explained that the voiceless people she writes about are patients she saw while working as a pharmacist in a nursing hospital and those who were cohort-isolated during COVID-19, helplessly facing death. She also criticized the superficial perception in our society that aging makes life difficult due to elderly issues. "It is surprising that our society views elderly people driving very critically. Statistically, elderly people are not bad drivers, but they cannot raise their voices."

Professor Seo Young-chae of Seoul National University said, "There are writings that even the author does not understand after writing them, but criticism is about those very texts," adding, "I will read more deeply, more carefully, and more repeatedly."

?lvaro Trigo Maldonado, professor in the Department of Modern Literature at the University of Salamanca in Spain and winner of the translation category, was born in Spain in 1988. He went to Germany as an exchange student in 2008, where he befriended Korean students, which led him to translate Korean books. So far, he has translated 12 Korean literary works including Kim Ae-ran’s Bakateun Yeoreum (Summer Outside), Kim Hoon’s Namhan Sanseong (The Fortress of Namhan), and the complete works of Chae Man-sik. He introduced Jeojutokki as "a shocking work that I fell in love with from the start," adding, "It was a work I was completely immersed in as if cursed." Winners of the Daesan Literary Award receive a prize of 50 million KRW and a bronze pine tree sculpture by sculptor Yang Hwa-seon as a trophy. The award ceremony will be held at 6:30 p.m. on the 28th at the President Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul.

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