Kim Jae young

Life

Born in 1966 in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea Kim moved to Seoul during her elementary school years and went to Ssangmun Elementary, Dobong Girls Middle School and Songgok Girls High School. While still in High School Kim began writing literature and in 1985 she enrolled in SungKyunKwan University where she majored in Family Management. She was primarily interested in dramatic arts, but in her junior year was deeply affected by the Workers Struggle of June 1987. She was elected president of the College of Life Sciences, but was eventually expelled from school. Kim worked for a time as an assistant for National Federation of Street Vendors and eventually married and had two sons. She wrote her first professional story in 1998, and it won the Jeon Tae-il Award that year. She returned to university at Chungang University where she completed the professionals course, and went on to the Chungang Graduate School. Kim spent a year in New York when her husband had a visiting professorship at Columbia University. While there she wrote diasporic stories. She received her doctorate degree in 2013 and as of 2015 was teaching literature ad Chungang University, Myongil University, and Soongeui Women's College.

Work

Unusually, Kim's works often focus on the immigrant experience in Korea. Kim wrote her first professional story in 1998 and it won the Jeon Tae-il Literary Award. In 1999 she won another major award for her work "Another Season" and became a critical hit when "The Elephant" was published in Quarterly Changbi in 2004. Her novel, Gluttony, was published in 2009.

Works in Translation

Works in Korean (Partial)

Awards