2014 Sejong Writing Competition

Judges

Sijo Judges: David McCann | Sunghee Kim | Ivanna Yi
Essay Judges: Heinz Insu Fenkl | Joonok Huh | Ty Pak

 

David McCann

sijo

David R. McCann, ICAS, is Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations as well as Director of the Korea Institute at Harvard University. David is the recipient of numerous prizes, grants, and fellowships including the prestigious Manhae Prize in Arts and Sciences (2004), the Daesan Foundation Translation Grant (1997), and the Korea P.E.N. Center Translation Prize (1994). His many books include Traveler Maps: Poems by Ko Un (2004), The Columbia Anthology of Modern Korean Poetry (2004), Early Korean Literature: Selections and Introductions (2001), War and Democracy: A Comparative Study of the Korean War and the Peloponnesian War (2001) and The Classical Moment: Views from Seven Literatures (1999).

Not only a renowned translator of major Korean poems but also a well-recognized poet, David has published many poems in such distinguished media as Poetry, Ploughshares, Descant, Runes and recently published a chapbook of poems Cat Bird Tree (2005). His poem "David" was included in the Pushcart Prize Anthology III. David's new book of poems The Way I Wait For You was published in 2010 by Codhill Press.

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Sunghee Kim

sijo

Sunghee Kim is a Ph.D. candidate in East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. He received his B.A. in Economics and his M.A. in Korean Literature and Language, both from Yonsei University at Seoul. He is the recipient of the Seoam-SBS Scholarship, the Brain Korea 21 Scholarship, and the International Communication Foundation Fellowship. Prior to coming to Harvard University in 2008, he was a lecturer of Writing [Kŭlssŭgi] in Yonsei University.

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Ivanna Yi

sijo

Ivanna Yi was born in Seoul, Korea, and raised in Texas. She received her BA in English with a writing concentration in poetry from Yale University, after which she travelled to Korea on a Fulbright scholarship to study p’ansori and sijo in performance. The recipient of an Academy of American Poets Award and a Clapp Fellowship for poetry from Yale, her poems have been set to music and sung at the Aspen Music Festival, the Curtis Institute of Music, and Carnegie Hall. She is currently a PhD candidate in Korean literature at Harvard University.

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Heinz Insu Fenkl

essay

Heinz Insu Fenkl is a writer, editor, translator, and folklorist. His first novel, Memories of My Ghost Brother, was a Barnes and Noble “Great New Writer” selection and a PEN/Hemingway finalist. He serves on the editorial board of AZALEA: the Journal of Korean Literature & Culture, published by Harvard’s Korea Institute, and as a consulting editor to the internet translation journal, Words Without Borders. He is best known for his deconstruction of the Starbucks logo and his translations of North Korean comics. He has taught a range of courses at Vassar, Bard, Sarah Lawrence, and Yonsei University (Korea), including Asian/American Folk Traditions, East Asian Folklore Korean Literature, Asian American Literature, and Native American Literature. Currently, he teaches the capstone creative writing course, “The Craft of Fiction,” as well as “Great Books of Asia,” which focuses on Asian religious texts, at the State University of New York at New Paltz. In 2010, after receiving a koan, he began translating the sijo poetry of Korean Zen Master Cho Oh-hyun. His most recent prose translation, Yi Mun-yol’s short story, “An Anonymous Island,” was published in the September 12, 2011 issue of The New Yorker.

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Joonok Huh

essay

Joonok Huh, Professor of English, University of Northern Colorado, teaches Asian American literature, American literature, and women’s literature. She was born in Seoul, Korea, came to America as a graduate student, and received her PhD in English from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. She is currently writing about the four generations of women in her family—grandmother, mother, herself, and her daughter born in America. She believes personal stories turn testimony into history, and wants to ensure, in scholarship and life stories, that in the process of globalization Korean identity maintains its own unique character.

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Ty Pak

essay

Born in Korea shortly before World War II, Ty Pak witnessed Japanese colonial rule, Korea’s liberation from Japan in 1945, its division during subsequent U.S. and Soviet occupation, and the trauma of the Korean War in his early childhood and adolescent years. After receiving his law degree from Seoul National University in 1961 he worked as a reporter for the English dailies The Korean Republic and The Korea Times. In 1965, he emigrated to the United States. After earning his Ph.D. in English from Bowling Green State University, Ohio, in 1969 he taught in the English Department at the University of Hawaii from 1970 to 1987. His first collection of short stories, Guilt Payment (1983), has been widely adopted as textbooks at many US colleges. His other books include Moonbay (1999), Cry Korea Cry (1999), A Korean Decameron (1961, to be reissued 2014), and The Polyglot (2014). Married with three children, he presently lives in Honolulu, Hawaii.

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