Part 1 target

Yesoyeon... ... Award-winning work 'The Dog and the Revolution'
Yesoyeon... Acceptance Speech: "Counting What Happened"
Yesoyeon... ...Literary Autobiography, "To the Place Where I Endured the Gust"
Yesoyeon... ...her charity masterpiece, "Deep Breath of the Heart"
A Conversation with Author Ye So-yeon - Park Hye-jin (Literary Critic, 48th Yi Sang Literary Award Preliminary Jury Member)
A Study on the Work "The Revolutionary Nature of Love" - ​​Jeon Seung-min (Literary Critic)

2nd Division Excellence Award

Kim Ki-tae… Electric Fiction
A Conversation with Author Kim Ki-tae - Seonwoo Eun-sil (Literary Critic, Preliminary Jury Member for the 48th Yi Sang Literary Award)

Moon Ji-hyuk… … 『Hurricane Night』
A Conversation with Author Moon Ji-hyeok - Shim Wan-seon (Literary Critic, 48th Yi Sang Literary Award Preliminary Jury Member)

Seo Jang-won… … 『Little Pride』
A Conversation with Author Seo Jang-won - Oh Eun-kyo (Literary Critic, Preliminary Jury Member for the 48th Yi Sang Literary Award)

Jeong Gi-hyeon… … ‘A Person with a Sad Heart’
A Conversation with Author Jeong Gi-hyeon - So Yoo-jeong (Literary Critic, Preliminary Jury Member for the 48th Yi Sang Literary Award)

Choi Min-woo… … 『Guana』
A Conversation with Author Choi Min-woo - Electricity (Literary Critic, 48th Yi Sang Literary Award Preliminary Jury Member)

Part 3 Review

Judging process
Judges' Comments... Kim Kyung-wook (novelist, 48th Yi Sang Literary Award Jury Member)
Judges' Comments... Kim Hyung-jung (literary critic, 48th Yi Sang Literary Award Jury Member)
Judges' Comments... Shin Su-jeong (Literary Critic, 48th Yi Sang Literary Award Jury Member)
Judges' Comments: Eun Hee-kyung (Novelist, 48th Yi Sang Literary Award Jury Member)
Judges' Comments... Choi Jin-young (novelist, 48th Yi Sang Literary Award Jury Member)

“Mrs. Gong, please take care of yourself.
“Our enemy is the system.” _From “The Dog and the Revolution”

A revolutionary narrative of inclusion that answers the questions of our time.

The 48th Yi Sang Literary Award winner, "The Dog and the Revolution," depicts a scene where a father from the 1980s student movement generation and a daughter from the 2020s feminist youth generation join forces to plan a "mess."
The stage for the project that the two generations are working on together is none other than the funeral of the father, Taesu.
The funeral home, once a rigid, institutional space, is reborn as a vibrant space where puppies run wild thanks to the combined efforts of a father and daughter, and the act of sending off the deceased is transformed into an act that inherits and evolves the values ​​of the "revolution" that a generation dreamed of.


Taesu, who in his youth “threw Molotov cocktails, worked undercover in factories, and distributed leaflets,” is a person who is very interested in labor issues, but he is a person who does not say a word about the housework that takes place inside his own home.
His daughter, Sumin, doesn't even know what NL and PD are, but she clearly has a "will to live," even if it's lukewarm. She's one of those "women these days who wear badges about environmental movements and feminist movements hanging from their bags."
These two people, who seem to dream of very different 'revolutions', have enough in common to become 'comrades' who can work together.
It is the heart that loves each other and the identity of “a person who ends up interfering with everything.”

I also wanted to be a person like Taesu.

As soon as Taesu heard what I said, he said, "Is that so?"
Then he asked me what kind of person I was.
“A person who ends up interfering with everything.” - From “The Dog and the Revolution”

Literary critic Shin Su-jeong said of this work, “It is a satire and counterattack by the daughter’s generation against the absurd bias of the father’s generation, while also being a confession of their indescribable longing and love for their legacy,” adding that it is a work that shows that the simultaneous combination of satire and love is possible.
Novelist Eun Hee-kyung commented that the work demonstrates “the contradiction of being both inclusive and revolutionary,” and literary critic Park Hye-jin pointed out that the work “contains the spirit of the times that is most urgently needed now, in that it involves understanding each other while simultaneously completing each person’s own ‘revolution.’”


Author Yesoyeon said, “Rather than thinking about the end of a generation, I have always thought about what we have inherited from them,” and added, “I wrote this novel in the hope that our lives will become more flexible.”

In-depth discussions with winners and judges - Includes six full interviews

A new tradition of the Yi Sang Literary Award will begin with the 48th award in 2025.
The goal is to conduct in-depth interviews with six winners and six judges, and include the full text of those six interviews in a collection of works.
The 'Lee Sang Literary Award Anthology' has become even more enriched by including conversations between the judges and the award-winning authors about their works.

The conversation with author Yesoyeon was conducted by literary critic Park Hyejin, a member of the preliminary selection committee.
This collection contains the full text of an in-depth conversation about the writing intentions and behind-the-scenes stories of the award-winning work, "The Dog and the Revolution," perspectives on intergenerational relationships, and the value this work offers to readers living in the present age.

The conversation with the five award-winning authors was also conducted by the literary critic who was in charge of the preliminary selection.
Literary critic Seonwoo Eunsil spoke with author Kim Ki-tae of "Electric Fiction," literary critic Shim Wan-sun spoke with author Moon Ji-hyeok of "Hurricane Night," literary critic Oh Eun-kyo spoke with author Seo Jang-won of "Little Pride," literary critic So Yoo-jeong spoke with author Jeong Gi-hyeon of "A Person with a Sad Heart," and literary critic Jeon Gi-hwa spoke with author Choi Min-woo of "Guana."


Includes the literary autobiography of Grand Prize winner Ye So-yeon and a new short story from 2025.

Every year, the Yi Sang Literary Award collection includes a "literary autobiography," an essay in which the winning author briefly reflects on his or her life as a writer.
This is a unique composition of the Lee Sang Literary Award collection that has been held for a long time.
This year, author Yesoyeon Ye's literary autobiography, "To the place where I went forward while enduring the storm," was included.

The charity work of the award-winning author includes the novel "Deep Breath of the Heart" by Yesoyeon, newly published in 2025.
This novel, which questions what constitutes an existence and looks into fragments of memory and the mind, shows a spectrum of Yesoyeon that is different from that of "The Dog and the Revolution" with its science fiction setting.

A leading domestic literary award that has represented the flow of modern Korean literature for 48 years.

The Yi Sang Literary Award was established in 1977 to honor the literary spirit, achievements, and literary achievements of author Yi Sang (1910-1937), who opened up a new path for Korean literature without being bound by existing standards.
An award is given annually to the most outstanding short and medium-length novel published in Korea during the year.


From the first recipient, Kim Seung-ok, to Lee Cheong-jun, Park Wan-seo, Yang Gui-ja, Eun Hee-kyung, Han Kang, Kim Yeon-su, Kim Young-ha, Kim Ae-ran, and this year's recipient, Ye So-yeon, the history of the Yi Sang Literary Award is so intertwined with the history of modern Korean literature that simply listing the names of past recipients would outline the history of modern fiction.
Additionally, the 『Lee Sang Literary Award Anthology』, which includes the grand prize winners and excellent works, is considered an important barometer for examining the landscape and trends of modern Korean novels.

The 48th Yi Sang Literary Award Preliminary Review Process

In the preliminary round, six literary critics, including Park Hye-jin, Seonwoo Eun-sil, So Yoo-jeong, Sim Wan-seon, Oh Eun-kyo, and Jeon Ki-hwa, judged the entries.
The preliminary selection committee thoroughly reviewed approximately 300 short and medium-length stories published in major domestic literary magazines, including webzines, from January to December 2024.
It was a method of overlapping evaluation in which each preliminary judge individually reviewed all the candidates, and under the general principle of considering only the quality of the work as a criterion for evaluation, all works announced in 2024 were considered for evaluation without any exclusion conditions.
Accordingly, the works of the winners of the Lee Sang Literary Award and the works already published as books were also included in the evaluation.
However, the works of the author who was in charge of the final judging were excluded from the judging to ensure fairness.
As a result of the preliminary screening, a total of 30 works advanced to the final screening.

The 48th Yi Sang Literary Award Final Selection Process

In the main judging, three novelists, Eun Hee-kyung (also a member of the steering committee), Kim Kyung-wook, and Choi Jin-young, and two literary critics, Kim Hyeong-jung and Shin Su-jeong, were in charge of judging.
The jury members met in January 2025 and conducted the review through discussion.
First, we went through the process of selecting 6 award-winning works out of 30 finalists.
After a long period of discussion and debate, six works were selected with great difficulty, but it didn't take long to decide on one work to receive the grand prize.
The judging for the 48th Yi Sang Literary Award has been completed with all five judges readily agreeing to select Yesoyeon's "The Dog and the Revolution" as the grand prize winner.

The sole judging criterion for 2025 will be "artistic quality"… Focus on "Is this the best work of the year?"

The 48th Yi Sang Literary Award did not impose any restrictions on the nominations, and all 300 short and medium-length novels published in Korea throughout 2024 were subject to equal judging.
Literary critic Kim Hyung-jung, who was in charge of the final review, said the following:


“The only criterion for selecting the winner of this year’s Yi Sang Literary Award was its ‘originality.’
I mean, a work of art that at least five (final) judges can agree is of the highest standard.
So, unusually, the works of the winners of the Yi Sang Literary Award were also included in the evaluation, and works that had already won other literary awards in 2024 were not necessarily excluded.
“Works that have already been published in other anthologies or bound into books were no exception.”

Judges' comments on the grand prize-winning work, "The Dog and the Revolution"

“A true revolution is neither sacred nor grand.
When the revolution runs wild like 'that dog', its small, affectionate warmth will give us courage.
I read it three or four times as a judge and realized it again.
“If God rules over humanity with the whip of time, then humanity has the ultimate weapon of humor.”
- Kim Kyung-wook (novelist, 48th Yi Sang Literary Award judging committee member)

“The issues of generation, ideology, and revolution were all compressed into this short piece.
Plus it was warm.
“The scene at the end where a dog revolution suddenly appears at a funeral was the highlight of the work, and it was clearly read as the maximum level of resistance that author Ye So-yeon had devised in an era when revolution had become impossible.”
- Kim Hyung-jung (literary critic, 48th Yi Sang Literary Award judging committee member)

“It is a satire and counterattack by the daughters’ generation against the absurd bias of their fathers’ generation, while at the same time it is a confession of their indescribable longing and love for their legacy.
Satire and love.
Is it possible to combine them simultaneously?
This novel says it is possible.
The judges readily agreed with this special way of loving, which is both satirical and embracing.”
- Shin Su-jeong (literary critic, 48th Yi Sang Literary Award judging committee member)

“There was a freshness, a revolutionary quality.
Rather than unilaterally denying and burying the era symbolized by Father Taesu, the funeral is held and a new start is attempted using the language of the era.
“It is a contradiction in terms: it is both inclusive and revolutionary.”
Eun Hee-kyung (novelist, 48th Yi Sang Literary Award judge/steering committee member)

“The author mentions the ‘NL’ and ‘PD’ of the past activist movement, the ‘feminists’ and ‘environmental movement’ of the present, and the ‘Gosamnyeo’, and shows that the challenges of the times have changed and that we are going through new questions.
(…) “The Dog and the Revolution” is discovered at all costs.
A handful of love amidst so much hatred.
“If we gather the love and will of ordinary people, a revolution is possible.”
- Choi Jin-young (novelist, 48th Yi Sang Literary Award judging committee member)