A WRITER TRUE TO HIS WORD

On Douban, an online review platform, readers praise the Chinese translation of At Dusk by South Korean author Hwang Seok-yeong. They note that despite the author being in his 70s when he wrote the novel, it exudes a youthful vigor, devoid of any hints of aging.

That is the impression one can easily glean from a recent event at the Korean Cultural Center in Beijing. At 81, Hwang uses a cane but this, he stresses, is due to a recent ankle sprain, not his age. Quick-witted and articulate, he speaks in a resonant and powerful voice. The audience, many in their 20s and 30s, filled the multimedia hall on a freezing December afternoon, breaking into laughter and applause during his address.

Chinese writer Zhi An said at the event that, unlike many other veteran writers, Hwang's style has not become slick with the passing years. Instead, it has grown more vigorous and profound. Hwang's work always possesses strength and dignity, he added.

"Though not immediately visible, this backbone is firm beneath the surface," Zhi An says.

At this often-asked question about whether his writing style had changed with age, Hwang answers that "the essence of my writing has never changed".

He recalls a moment at the second Liangzhu Forum he attended in late November in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. It was organized under the theme of "Exchange and Mutual Learning and the New Form of Human Civilization" and was co-hosted by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the National Cultural Heritage Administration and the local government. At the event, a Chinese writer said in a speech that the source of culture is the people.

"The source of culture is of course the people, but I had forgotten this for a long time. This trip to China has been very uplifting, reminding me of essential things I had neglected due to laziness," Hwang says.

In a firm and raised voice, he says that veteran writers should revisit the mindset of their youth, start afresh and embrace new works as exciting challenges instead of stopping writing or seeking other ways for a peaceful retirement.

"The concept of late-life art is essentially a reflection of oneself, a return to one's core to explore a new world. This is what makes a great artist. It is also my dream," he says, followed by a thunderous applause.

Hailed as a national treasure, Hwang is arguably the most respected and renowned writer in the Republic of Korea and has won the top literary awards. His novels, such as Familiar Things, Princess Bari, Shim Chung, The Ancient Garden, and The Shadow of Arms, have been translated and published in many countries including China, Japan, Germany, Italy, Sweden, France and the United States.

In 2019, At Dusk was longlisted for the International Booker Prize, winning the Emile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature. This year, his novel Mater 2-10 also entered the list for the International Booker Prize.

Born in 1943 in Changchun in Northeast China, Hwang moved with his parents first to Pyongyang in 1945 after Japan's defeat. He then moved to Seoul, living through different wars between the 1940s and '60s, including fighting on the front lines in the Vietnam War from 1966 to 1969.

In 1989, Hwang made a secret visit to Pyongyang, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which led to a five-year exile overseas. During this time, he witnessed the collapse of the Berlin Wall. When he returned to the ROK in 1993, he was sentenced to five years in prison. These experiences have given Hwang a broader perspective and deeper insights into historical and social issues.

The novel At Dusk delicately depicts the fate of the two main characters Park Minwoo and Cha Soo-na amid changing times through a dual narrative, outlining a picture of their hometown submerged by the tide of modernization.

In an introduction to the Chinese translation of At Dusk, published by Beijing Xiron Culture Group, poet and translator Xue Zhou writes that "through personal understanding and knowledge of history, Hwang breathed new life into modern South Korean history, transforming grand narratives into individual narratives, which have become valuable assets in the literary and social history of the country".

Hwang's aspiration to become a writer began in the fourth grade. He wrote his first essay, Homecoming Day, for a composition class about returning after the war to find his home half-destroyed. After winning the top prize in a national writing contest for primary school students, the essay was published in a newspaper, which inspired Hwang to pursue a career in writing.

He wrote his first story at 16 and three years later won the New Writer Award organized by Sasanggye (The World of Thought) magazine, marking the beginning of a lifelong writing career. He dedicated considerable time to learning about society through personal experiences and interviews, aiming to better understand reality.

He participated in social movements and traveled, working in various factories to make a living. By his mid-20s, Hwang had experienced wars, displacement, vagrancy, laboring in sweatshops, imprisonment and even becoming a monk. These experiences were invaluable for his personal growth, offering him unique perspectives on his country and society. They also provided rich material that he would later reflect on and transform into outstanding novels.

In the following decades, Hwang continued to observe society and address its problems in his works.

In At Dusk, he focuses on the rapid urbanization in the ROK, a period when villages transformed into cities with a booming real estate market, commercial growth and what he saw as cultural decline.

In 1998, Hwang was released from prison as Asia was going through a serious financial crisis. When the situation improved, a global economic crisis hit in 2008. In these hard times, the socially vulnerable and younger generations felt particularly helpless.

Since the start of the 21st century, the ROK has overtaken Japan with the highest suicide rate in the world. This increase, Hwang says, was not "due to extreme despair or helplessness but the unwillingness to live in disgrace". Many individuals chose to die with their families. Such was the dark atmosphere in the shadow of capitalism, he adds.

Zhi An says: "What impressed me most about the novel is that, although progress has significantly improved material living conditions, it has not brought the expected increase in happiness."

For Hwang, the novel offers younger generations a chance to review the mistakes the older generations made on their way forward in the process of modernization.

Using the psychological term "a hole with a lid", Hwang compared the mistakes that one made in life to holes, which were often temporarily covered or filled as a quick way to deal with them.

As people moved forward, looking back revealed holes everywhere.

"When we return to the holes, open the lids and reexamine the darkness inside, such a review marks our personal growth. Our society develops the same way," Hwang says.

"Looking back and opening the lids to reexamine those holes is the function of literature," he says, adding that "the publishing of this novel is connected to this function as well".

Hwang believes that during the process of social development, the older generations covered or filled holes they made along the way. Now is the time to hand them over to the younger generations for reflection, he adds.

For decades, he stuck to traditional methods to collect materials for his realistic descriptions of life and work, such as those in At Dusk. Before starting the novel, he went to the suburbs of Seoul to talk to young men working in cafes and pizza shops. He asked them about their lives, and when they mentioned their girlfriends, he would ask them to bring them to their talks. On their days off, he would ask them out for drinks. "It takes at least one month to gain a better understanding of their lives, which is essential work for a writer," he says.

"When I write about other people's lives, I often think about what they are thinking and what their life is like so that readers can resonate with my works," he adds. "Resonance and connection are the foundation of literature in the 21st century."

Although Hwang experienced a lot of turns and twists in earlier years, he says that "on the whole, the world is getting better".

When asked about dealing with the relationship between writing and the advancement of time, he says, "for me, it's not about staying young forever but continuously adapting to a changing society".

As one of the first authors in the ROK to write online, he learned to use ChatGPT 4.0 three months ago to assist with his research, which greatly improved the quality and efficiency, he says.