Hailji

Biography

The writer known as Hailji was born Im Jong-ju. He was born on 3 May 1955 in Gyeongju, in North Gyeongsang Province.

He studied creative writing at Chung-Ang University and then completed a master’s degree in Korean literature. From 1980 to 1983 he taught at a high school. In 1983 he left for France: at the University of Poitiers he took a master’s degree, and at the University of Limoges he defended a doctoral dissertation in French literature. He returned to Korea in 1989.

His literary career began with the novel “The Road to Racetracks” (Gyeongmajang ganeun gil), published in 1990 by Minumsa. The hero of the book is an intellectual who has come back from France: he runs up against the hypocritical standards and conservative values of Korean society, and his world, inner and outer, gradually crumbles. The book brought the author quick success and notoriety at the same time. Over the next three years four more novels appeared: “Racetracks at Crossroads” (1991), “For Racetracks” (1991), “An Alder Tree at the Racetracks” (1992) and “What Happened at the Racetracks” (1993). Critics’ verdicts ranged from enthusiasm to outright rejection, and Hailji became embroiled in a series of debates with conservative critics, now called the “Racetrack Controversy”. Critics note his descriptive manner of writing and the circular structure of his books. He is also known for publishing almost exclusively novels in Korea.

Later came “He Asked Me If I Knew Jita” (1994), “Dangerous Alibi” (1995), the five-volume “Arabian Nights” (1997–1998), “Bird” (1999), “Statement” (Jinsul, 2000), “Mano Cabina Remembered” (2002; in 1993 he had published a ciné-roman with the same hero), “For Ever Thirsty, For Ever Young” (2008), “The Republic of Užupis” (2009) and “The Guest” (2012). His later works have a fantastic, dreamlike atmosphere and a devoted readership. “The Republic of Užupis” is a fictional novel about Lithuania, where he has been many times; the book was translated into Lithuanian in 2013. He has a long friendship with the Lithuanian poet Kornelijus Platelis. Many of his novels have been adapted for film or the stage, and Hailji is regarded as a notable contributor to the development of modern Korean cinema.

He writes poetry too. The collection “Blue Meditation of the Clocks” came out in English in the United States in 1994, the collection “The Swallows in My Drawer” in Korean in 2010, and his French poems, under the title “Les Hirondelles dans mon tiroir”, were published in Paris in 2003. Among writers working in Korean, it seems to me, few have published in so many different languages. There is also a theoretical book, “A Theory of the Distance of the Novel” (1991), and a philosophical one, “In Search of Myself” (2006). The novel “Statement” appeared in Spanish (“La confesión”, 2011).

He taught creative writing at Dongduk Women’s University until his retirement at the statutory age.