Richard E. Kim
Richard Eun Kook Kim (1932–2009) was a Korean–American writer and professor of literature. He was the author of The Martyred (1964), The Innocent (1968), and Lost Names (1970), and many other works. He was a Guggenheim Fellow (1966) and was a recipient of a Fulbright grant. His most popular work is Lost Names, a fictional work based on his experience during the Japanese colonization of Korea. Biography Kim Eun Kook, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was born in 1932 in Hamhung, South Hamgyong, a city in what is now North Korea. He was raised first in Korea, then Manchukuo, and then Korea again. His childhood consisted of living during the tail end of the Japanese occupation. After serving in the Republic of Korea Marine Corps and Army, 1950–54, he was honorably discharged as first lieutenant of the Infantry in 1954 and came to the United States in 1955. He was educated at Middlebury College in Vermont, where he studied political science and history, 1955–59; at Johns Hopkins University (M.A. in writing, 1960); at the University of Iowa's Writers Workshop (M.F.A. 1962); and at Harvard University (M.A. in Far Eastern languages and literature, 1963). Career The Martyred, Kim's first novel, is about the Korean War, which would be made into a play, an opera, and a film. It was also nominated for a National Book Award. It was followed by The Innocent (1968), about politics in postwar South Korea, and Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood (1970), a collection of stories. His academic experience included various professorships in English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Syracuse University, San Diego State University, and at Seoul National University, where he was a Fulbright professor, 1981–83. He received a Ford Foundation Foreign Area Fellowship (1962–63), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1966), the First Award, Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards (1974), a National Endowment for the Arts Literary Fellowship (1978–79), and other awards and honors. His published original works include the novels The Martyred (1964), The Innocent (1968) and Lost Names (1970); a children's story, "A Blue Bird" (in Korean, 1983); "In Search of Lost Years" (in Korean, 1985), and "Lost Koreans in China and the Soviet Union: Photo-Essays" (1989). His television work, for KBS-TV of Seoul, includes "200 Years of Christianity in Korea" (1981), "The Korean War" (1983), "On Japan" (1984), "Reflections on the Wartime Massacres" (1985), "A Passage to Manchuria" (1987), "In Search of Lost Koreans in the Soviet Union" (1988), and "The Great Trans-Siberian Railway" (1989). He was a columnist for The Korea Herald and The Chosun Ilbo (Korea Daily) in Seoul, 1981–84. Family and life experiences have played a huge role as inspiration for his writing. His father is the more influential of these, and Kim has described his father as a saint. His father is also a major character in his book Lost Names (1970). Books The Martyred. Originally published in 1964; reissued by Penguin Classics, 2011. The Innocent. 1968. Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood. Originally published in 1970; reissued