Azalea 13: Journal of Korean Literature and Culture

The special feature of this issue of Azalea carries a feast of research: eight essays on modern Korean poetry, thanks to the endeavors of the two guest editors, Jae Won Chung and Benoit Berthelier. From the beginning period of the 1920s, described by Ku In-mo and David Krolikoski, to the genealogy of modernism, written by Jae Won Edward Chung, to North Korean poetry, covered by Benoit Berthelier and Sonja Haeussler, to twenty-first-century South Korean poetry, examined by Cho Kang-sŏk and Ivanna Sang Een Yi, this feature evinces that the field of modern Korean poetry has gotten in firm stakes.

In the poetry section, alongside the somewhat male-dominant history of modern Korean poetry sketched by the aforementioned research, we have three women poets: Choi Jeongrye, Kim So Yeon, and Kim Yideum. Their poems, deeply immersed in their interiorities, stand out in the current field of Korean poetry.

The Writer in Focus introduces Kim Hoon, currently one of the most popular writers in South Korea. Kim Hoon's literary world, which is often said to have opened a unique style of vernacular Korean writing, especially in historical novels, shows how much poetry has combined with prose. The metaphoric images in his writing often reach poetry, about which Korean readers have been enthusiastic.