“A moving, weighty novel that has emerged from a quiet, serious soul” – Le Monde

“A great novel in which abundant, powerful images have brought to life the mythical dimension of love” – Le Figaro

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, the 2008 Nobel Laureate for Literature, has a deep affection for Korean literature. During his year-long stay in Korea as a visiting professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, he held book readings with Korean authors on several occasions. At the press conference after the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony, he stated that “Korean literature is quite worthy of the Nobel Literature Prize,” and that “Personally, I would say that Anatoly A. Kim, Hwang Sok-yong, and Lee Seung-U are likely candidates for the prize.”

Anatoly A. Kim, an author of Korean descent residing in Russia, is widely known among experts on Russian literature. Hwang Sok-yong is noted as a major author of Korean realist literature, and also for his political activities that contributed to the democratization movement. Many Koreans anticipate that he will receive the Nobel Prize, for a substantial number of his works, including the novel The Guest, have already been translated into English, French, and German, gaining him international recognition.

In the case of Lee Seung-U, the general readership in Korea-aside from a small number of specialists such as critics, journalists, and editors-are unfamiliar with the author. Lee, who began his literary career in 1981, has received many prestigious literary awards in Korea, including the Daesan Literary Award, Dongsuh Literary Award, and Hyundae Literary Award, and in 2010, he received the Hwang Sun-won Literary Award for his short story, “Cutlass.” Despite high critical acclaim, Lee’s novels have never made it to the top ranks of the bestseller list in Korea. They are considered high literature, enjoyed only by a small but loyal readership.

What’s remarkable about Lee is that he is more widely recognized in France than he is in Korea. Of his novels, The Reverse Side of Life and The Private Lives of Plants have been published by Zulma, a French publisher, and received positive reviews. In 2000, The Reverse Side of Life was a finalist for the Prix Femina of France in the category of foreign literature. The Private Lives of Plants, published as a Gallimard Folio edition, was selected as one of the novels recommended by French booksellers. The French daily, Le Monde, has said of Lee’s novel, “a moving, weighty novel that has emerged from a quiet, serious soul,” and Le Figaro wrote that it’s “a great novel in which abundant, powerful images have brought to life the mythical dimension of love.”

The Reverse Side of Life unfolds through the first person narrator, a writer working on a critical biography of Pak Gilbu, a novelist. The work, through a novel-within-a-novel framework, deals in depth with the meaning of writing. Many factors in the novel are derived from the life of Lee, the author himself. The Private Lives of Plants depicts, through elegant storytelling, the private lives of people who live as “embodiments of failed love,” in a world where the law of the jungle prevails. Le Clézio has suggested that a Korean film director adapt the book to film.

Lee, a graduate of a theological university, has said regarding the popularity of his novels in France, “It seems that the Christian worldview, the concern for individuals and their inner worlds, and the sentences that don’t appeal so much to emotion, are to the liking of the people there.” Regarding the relationship between religion and literature, he said, “If religion is the bone in the human spirit, literature is the flesh.”

I met Lee at a café in Hongdae, a popular neighborhood in Seoul famous for its youth culture. The talk of the media at the time was The Grand Design, a book by Stephen Hawking in which Hawking denies the existence of a god, and claims that the universe was born out of nothing. I asked Lee, who majored in theology, what his thoughts were on Hawking’s claim.

As expected, he emphasized the existence of a supernatural being, saying, “We cannot help but acknowledge a being and a power which we cannot name.” He went on to say, “The black hole and the big bang spoken of in science have all arisen from the imagination. They’re not investigated through science alone. Humans would do well to humble themselves before the universe. They should keep themselves open to infinite possibilities regarding the formation of the universe.”

Reporter Park Hae-hyun and Novelist Lee Seung-U

Lee began his literary career with his reception of the New Writers Award by Korean Literature Monthly, with A Portrait of Erysichton, a novel triggered by the shock at the assassination attempt of Pope Paul II in 1981. Because he began his career with this novel, dealing with the anguish of a young student of theology regarding the order of rank between God and representatives of God, and between humans, Lee has always been labeled as a religious and abstract writer. On the other hand, because of such a label, Lee is noted as a serious, contemplative writer among critics.

In the history of Korean novels, Christianity, along with the train, represents modernity. Christianity, as a conveyor of Western civilization, shook to the core the worldview, class view, and social view of the Korean people. Thus, Korean writers of the past often dealt with the conflict between Christianity and native shamanism. Unlike his predecessors, however, Lee kept himself at a distance from the grammar of the existing Korean religious novel, in that he delved into Christianity itself, which he had accepted with his body and mind since his childhood. He stated, “There was no conflict between Christianity and shamanism in me. The shamanism of Korea is a secular religion through which people try to ward off evil and receive good fortune in this life. It is different from Western metaphysics. Ever since I was young, I had naturally accepted Christianity. I felt awkward at Buddhist temples, but felt very familiar with Christian sentiments. I grew accustomed to such sentiments, inherent in volumes of Western literature. I discovered Christianity through Western literature. Perhaps I lack a certain Korean quality, though I am a Korean writer.”

1. The Reverse Side of Life

Lee Seung-U, Munidang

2005, 299p, ISBN 8974562766

2. The Private Lives of Plants

Lee Seung-U, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

2000, 294p, ISBN 8982813233

3. Mysteries of the Labyrinth

Lee Seung-U, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd.

1994, 296p, ISBN 8932007004

4. Journals from Days Past

Lee Seung-U, Changbi Publishers, Inc

2008, 279p, 9788936437084

Among Lee’s works, only full-length novels have been translated into English and French, but he has published a great number of short story collections in the past three decades, due to the climate of the Korean literary world in which a writer’s capacity is evaluated mostly through short stories published in literary journals. Currently, he teaches creative writing—mostly short stories—to aspiring writers at Chosun University.

“The Korean short story is so unique that it can’t be described as just a short story. In a Korean short story, many characters and episodes appear, as in a Western novel, making the overall content as full as that of a novel. Korean writers are accustomed to condensing a full-length story down to a short story.

Lee stated, “The Korean short story is so unique that it can’t be described as just a short story. In the eyes of the Korean people, the Western short story is closer to a vignette. In a Korean short story, many characters and episodes appear, as in a Western novel, making the overall content as full as that of a novel. Korean writers are accustomed to condensing a full-length story down to a short story. When introducing short stories by Korean writers abroad, it would be good to introduce together three stories written by an author on similar subjects.”

1. Vermutungen über das Labyrinth

Lee Seung-U, Pendragon, 2005

2. The reverse side of life

Lee Seung-U, Peter Owen, 2005

3. L'Envers de la vie

Lee Seung-U, Zulma, 2000

4. Die Rückseite des Lebens

Lee Seung-U, Horlemann, 1996

5. La Vida Secreta de las Plantas

Lee Seung-U, Ediciones del Ermitaño, 2009

6. La vie rêvée des plantes

Lee Seung-U, Gallimard, 2009

It has been said that Lee’s novels have evolved from his earlier novels, which were full of abstract narration, to ones with more descriptive elements of everyday life. It seems that emaciated characters are gradually putting on flesh. “In the early days, I would add a story upon an idea, but now I focus more on the storytelling than the metaphysics. I deal more with understanding the character’s mentality than conveying a message. That is why, I think, people say that my novels have become more like fables and easier to read. In writing a novel, I try to find an answer to the question of why a certain character does a certain thing.”

Formerly a full-time writer, he came to change his views on novels in the process of teaching at a university. He said, “In the past, there were so many novels I couldn’t bring myself to acknowledge, novels I couldn’t even bring myself to read. Reading the works of my students, however, I’ve grown more tolerant of the kind of novel each student aspires to write, no longer insisting on the kind of novels I like.” In other words, he was a picky eater in the past when it came to reading, but now, he eats anything and everything. His only concern is that by eating everything up in this way, he might become “watered down.”

Among Korean writers, Lee is noted as an exemplar. He takes meticulous care of himself, never putting a cigarette to his mouth, and playing tennis at a near professional level. He encourages aspiring writers to read a book instead, if they have the time to drink, for drinking does not lead to inspiration. Jin Jeong-seok, a critic, said of Lee’s serious literature: “Lee’s novels make each reader dig up his old journal, buried deep in memory.” Thus, his novels invite readers on a journey into their own inner worlds. Though metaphysical, they read easily. Lee is a magician who turns readers into trees. His novels make readers stand still for a moment, and discover at their roots what they, long ago, had forgotten, turned away from, or hidden in their private lives.

By Park Hae-hyun