The 33rd Jeon Tae-il Literary Award winning collection, "I am a Postman with High Self-Esteem," was published.

The Jeon Tae-il Literary Award, established in 1988 to commemorate Jeon Tae-il's spirit of labor liberation and human liberation, is celebrating its 33rd anniversary this year, in 2025.
There are two changes to the Jeon Tae-il Literature Award starting this year.


Like Jeon Tae-il, who kept a diary to record the contradictions and concerns of society from the age of eighteen while working as a tailor at the Peace Market, we decided to focus the contest on essays in order to collect honest writings that capture the daily lives of ordinary working people.
Thanks to this, we were able to collect 300 essays submitted by 150 applicants.
Contrary to public concern that writings depicting the lives of ordinary working people are disappearing, people who work, read, write, and speak have always been and always will be.
This collection of award-winning works, which once again reflects on this, is a festival-like space where we gather together writings sharing our lives and asking about the well-being of our neighbors.


We are delighted to be able to present to the public the passionate writings of eight individuals who, among the many precious essays that shared their experiences in life, captured the eyes and hearts of the judges.
This collection of award-winning essays, which includes essays from winners of various generations, ages, genders, occupations, disabilities, sexualities, and more, will provide a vivid glimpse into the lives of our fellow community members, their sorrows and joys.
I would also like to thank authors Seo Go-un and Cheon Hyeon-woo, and critic Oh Hye-jin, for their hard work in judging the works.
From the voices of various fields, you have selected the forefront of contemporary labor issues, such as "liquefied labor," and have collected articles that reaffirm that "social minorities, who have always been pushed to the back burner, are the main defenders of democracy."


We are delighted to be able to present to the public the passionate writings of eight individuals who, among the many precious essays that shared their experiences in life, captured the eyes and hearts of the judges.
This collection of award-winning essays, which includes essays from winners of various generations, ages, genders, occupations, disabilities, sexualities, and more, will provide a vivid glimpse into the lives of our fellow community members, their sorrows and joys.
I would also like to thank authors Seo Go-un and Cheon Hyeon-woo, and critic Oh Hye-jin, for their hard work in judging the works.
From the voices of various fields, you have selected the forefront of contemporary labor issues, such as "liquefied labor," and have collected articles that reaffirm that "social minorities, who have always been pushed to the back burner, are the main defenders of democracy."


The best work, "Becoming a Mail Truck Driver," is an incredibly honest memoir.
Humans are inherently designed to overestimate themselves.
No matter how bad you are, you tend to assume average, or at least ordinary.
So most labor journals don't admit that they are 'below average'.
But this work begins by rejecting such human nature.
He confesses that he has made many mistakes as a truck driver and has always received help from his colleagues in the process of correcting them.
Although he was a contract worker, that is, a worker in liquid labor, he did not blame the world and worked hard to get a regular job.
Even though the writer has finally reached the position he wanted, he does not 'kick away the ladder'.
I want to run for the position of union branch president and work for workers in similar situations to my past.
Contrary to the common perception that cerebral palsy is simply pessimistic, this is a passionate piece about living with disability and overcoming the bleak reality of labor through solidarity among workers.


The excellent work "Teacher on the Hill" shows how liquid labor melts away even the desire to do a good job.
Although the author spent only five days working as a chaperone teacher, it was a period more than enough to expose the contradictions of the labor market.
Employers push workers to work hard and do their best, but they have no intention of actually treating them accordingly.
There is no way to punish them because the system cannot keep up.
The only reasonable strategy that workers can take here is to 'do it as best they can'.
In the work, the attitude of trying to do one's best in one's work even in the face of irrationality and the reality of one's desire to perform one's work well being trampled upon intersect repeatedly.
This work delves into the current labor reality faced by young people, where they are not compensated commensurate with their work, and demanding fair treatment is treated as a scapegoat.

In addition, starting this year, we established the Jeon Tae-il Writer's Award to broaden the scope of the Jeon Tae-il Literary Award and share the spirit of Jeon Tae-il with more readers.
The purpose is to honor works of poetry, novels, essays, and other books published over the past year that capture the lives of working people and their achievements in striving for a better world.
The first award-winning work was Kim Ki-tae's 『Two People's International』.
Kim Ki-tae's novels neither indulge in nostalgia for the political slogans of bygone times nor succumb to the cruelty of his time.
It was a work that found solidarity with our times in specific scenes of life without being easily immersed in either.
While we await the next work from the author who has shown us new hope for the international world of our time, we hope you won't miss the thrill of reading Kim Ki-tae's acceptance speech.
Author Kim Ki-tae's essay "In an Empty Lot That Is Not an Empty Lot" contains traces of Kim Ki-tae, an individual who lives as an ordinary citizen and writer, contemplating more intensely than anyone else about living with the "spirit of Jeon Tae-il."
Even if they are not committed to serious activism or real-world politics, the spirit of Jeon Tae-il is not absent from the hearts of all those who “share a certain sensibility that can be called conscience, a considerable number of those who agree with the assertion that everyone should have their own chair and a glass of beer.”
“I hope that you will read the Jeon Tae-il Literary Award collection, hoping that you will discover opportunities or methods for political practice, and that someone will gently push you.”
As the author confesses, literature is the best place to do such things.

The Jeon Tae-il Literature Prize will also do its best to gather the courage and enlightenment that ordinary people cultivate.
I want to convey to everyone that talking about human dignity is sometimes painful and sad, but it is also more than that, it is joyful, fun, and beautiful.