This book is a tribute collection by young researchers in various fields to the outstanding cultural and artistic figure Seungok Kim.
Although most people today remember Kim Seung-ok as a novelist, in the 1960s and 1970s, he was a cultural artist who was active in all areas of popular art, including popular novels, movies, and comics.
Literature was precious to Kim Seung-ok, but it was not ‘everything.’
The authors of this book say that Kim Seung-ok's extra-literary activities were not simply the result of personal extravagance or 'adventures.'
The six essays in this book are a continuation of the numerous theories of Kim Seung-ok and his works written over the past 40 years, starting with the generations of Yoo Jong-ho and Kim Yun-sik, but they are also new theories of the author and his works that have never been properly written, but that absolutely must be written.


Kim Seung-ok, who is he?

'Kim Seung-ok's sensitivity is the sensitivity of the century.'
Anyone who agrees with this statement is someone who was baptized by Kim Seung-ok's novels when they were in their early twenties.
Kim Seung-ok, who appeared like a comet in the Korean literary world in 1964 with the short story “Mujin Gihaeng.”
He was twenty-four years old at that time.
It was first published in the October 1964 issue of 『Sasanggye』, so it's been exactly 40 years.
However, after a short five-year career, he suddenly leaves the ‘Pure Literature Academy’.
A promising young writer who is acknowledged by everyone to have brought about a so-called 'revolution of sensibility' in the Korean literary world,
He abandoned his literature and literary world in his prime, around the age of thirty.
Why and where did he go?


Why did Kim Seung-ok leave literature?

This book tells you why and where he went at that time.
According to the detailed 'chronology' I wrote on my own, he went into popular literature, represented by 'Sunday Seoul', and the film industry.
“Yesterday’s Rain,” “The Golden Age of Youngja,” “Winter Woman”… These are all films written by Kim Seung-ok.
In the work titled “Potato,” he took on the role of director himself and proved that the advertising slogan “Jean Cocteau of Korea” is not an exaggeration.
Why? Because it was difficult to make a living.
“The book sold very well, but I didn’t receive any royalties,” he revealed for the first time in an interview for the book.
There was another reason.
“I want to write for both women’s magazines and popular magazines, and I want to write both novels and novels that focus on interest, and I also want to try my hand at dramas and screenplays.”
As some critics have argued, it's not because he's "corrupt" or "influenced by commercialism," but rather because Kim Seung-ok has had a keen interest in and talent for popular culture from the beginning.


Why a Renaissance Man?

As you can see from the filmography included in this book, his film career, which began with “Fog” in 1967, spans 16 films over nearly 20 years, ending with “After the Cloudy Days” in 1986.
Please note that this list of films and works has been reorganized to correct all previously known errors and inaccuracies.
Even before he started writing novels, he was already a multi-talented person who serialized a four-column political cartoon in a daily newspaper.
The literary magazine 『Prose Age』, which he created with Kim Hyeon, Kim Chi-su, and Yeom Mu-woong during his time as a French Literature student at Seoul National University, contains some of his wonderful caricatures.
Not only that, he also occasionally drew illustrations and even personally bound his own books and those of other authors.
Isn't he a 'Renaissance man'?


The 'sensibility of the century' still holds true

But Kim Seung-ok did not give up on novels.
'Kim Seung-ok's sensitivity is the sensitivity of the century.'
This phrase is from an advertisement for his book that appeared in a newspaper in 1980.
Even though he did not return, people did not forget his ‘splendid sensibility’, or rather, they could not forget it.
In response, he began serializing a long story titled “The Room of Dust” in the Dong-A Ilbo that year.
However, after only 14 episodes, he breaks his brush.
This happened right after 5/18.


The untold stories in my heart

As is well known, his subsequent activities were far removed from literary activities, including meeting God, writing a screenplay, becoming the editor-in-chief of Samteo, traveling, and becoming a professor at Sejong University.
And on the day he heard the news of Lee Moon-goo's death in 2003, he collapsed from a cerebral infarction.
This incident caused him to lose his language.
Not only words, but the entire writing system in my head is blown away.
It's too harsh a punishment for a 'genius writer of the times'.
But, to borrow his wife's expression, there is no trace of despair on his face.
He really doesn't seem to feel ashamed or uncomfortable about his disability.
The writing system has disappeared.
Although his speech is difficult, his memory is very precise.
At the end of the interview, he pointed to his chest and said:
“You can rewrite it.
“I have something in mind.”
I want to believe.
No, I believe it.
We truly believe he will return.

His long-time friend, poet Kim Ji-ha, wrote in a letter to Kim Seung-ok:
He said:

Seungok will definitely write again.
I will write a novel about God.
In this murky land of suffering, I will write an existential gospel novel far better than Graham Greene or Shusaku Endo.
A sense of mission for the writing task that only you can accomplish, with transcendent joy.
I hope you take it.

Furthermore, it is our humble hope that this book will serve as a foundation for opening new horizons in Kim Seung-ok's research.