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Words by Eugene Kim
Edited by Beth Eunhee Hong
As a native Korean and a long-time student of English literature, the first person I tend to think of on International Women’s Day is Virginia Woolf. Her essay A Room of One’s Own, which has become something of a manifesto for women who pursue writing, was something I held onto through the ups and downs of my life. It made me think about bonds between women beyond the familiar stereotype in Korea that “a woman’s worst enemy is another woman” (여자의 적은 여자).
When researching women writers, I was once advised not to rely too heavily on biography. But how could I not? After all, it was Woolf’s voice embedded in her life that often gave me small moments of awakening, both while writing my thesis and while struggling to survive in this rough world. What kept me within the world of Virginia Woolf until the final stage of my doctorate was partly the sheer abundance of material to work with. “Of course her writing is like a Bible,” said Meg Jensen, the examiner of my first upgrade. “You can find anything in Woolf to resonate with.” And she was so right. I still sometimes go to Kew Gardens. I visit Monk’s House and have picnics on Richmond Green, watching aeroplanes glide overhead with a noise that would have frightened her. On a busy street, I walk and suddenly am reminded of a scene from her novel and think: Is this what Woolf meant?
Then I also wonder: why had I never encountered someone else before, like, someone from my own country? Surely Woolf’s own works were not the only source of my academic as well as personal development. Her biographies, diaries, and even her letters, preserved over time, have continued to speak to me. Why were women like her nowhere in my school textbooks, or in all those “must-read Korean literature for students” lists? Where had all the Korean women writers gone, those who also insisted on living their lives on their own terms against all odds? My post-Woolf journey had to begin exactly as Woolf herself might have wished.
Kim Myeong-sun was the first woman writer in modern Korean literary history. There are not many photographs that remain of her: short hair, a faint smile on firmly closed lips, and eyes that must have carried a daring gaze, if only we could see them in colour. Her expression suggests someone with much to say—something that, at that time in her life, was never quite permitted. There is no need to list every form of sexual violence and public humiliation she endured. It is enough to say that she stood at the forefront of what we might now recognise as her era’s #MeToo moment, bearing the stigma of the “New Woman.” Born the daughter of a gisaeng, her life was never free from gossip from an early age. Whatever she did, eyes and ears followed her, turning her life into sensational articles—sold, circulated, and condemned.
Though she fought back, the hostile reports that targeted her eventually drove her to Japan and ended her life in exile. Bitterly, she would lament her homeland as “this savage land, this savage land.” In her 1924 poem Last Words (유언), Joseon—the old name of Korea—appears as a brutal and unmerciful place that hated her simply for being a woman with desire to learn, write and express. Love for her country turned into frustration, then fury, with nowhere to go but into verse that reads almost like last words- the title of the poem itself. We know only a few things about the end of her life: that she never married, lived in poverty, and died in a neurosurgical hospital in Tokyo at the age of fifty-five. Her presence in literary history remained largely buried until recently—distorted by confusion with a contemporary actress who had the same name, and neglected by a male-dominated literary circle, then as now, and by the academy that followed it. Yet faintly, but clearly, she has continued to be summoned from time to time by later women writers, who in turn summon readers like me, once a young reader of theirs.
Through these writers I came closer to Kim Myeong-sun. First there was Jeong Yi-hyun’s short story, 20th Century Modern Girl (20세기 모단 걸). It was 2003, and I remember I waited a month to borrow her book from the university library. I knew nothing of the “modern girl” concept, nor of Kim Myeong-sun herself. The story came to me as a surprise, as Jeong Yi-hyun was essential reading for those who grew up with Sex and the City and were eager to explore the idea of the romantic relationship and its contradictions in Korean society in the early 2000s. In some ways she was like the Jane Austen of our generation. Yet, like Jane Austen, Jeong Yi-hyun attracted attention simply as a woman writer rather than a feminist one—if those two labels ever carry a meaningful distinction. I, then a college freshman, began to wonder how Jeong had become curious about Kim Myeong-sun, a writer I had never heard of.
More than a decade later, I encountered Kim Myeong-sun again; my memory of reading 20th Century Modern Girl might simply have faded with time otherwise. This time it was through a column about her written by the poet Choi Young-mi. Choi has continued to write about Kim Myeong-sun’s poems in various platforms until recently. She writes with sympathy about the poem that broke my heart: “Every time I read Kim Myeong-sun’s 1924 poem Last Words, my heart aches.” It was the first unexpectedly gentle note I had found in Choi’s writing. Since her debut, Choi’s words quickly became known for their frankness. In Korea’s #MeToo movement, she was a Prometheus. In 2018 she shook the Korean literary world with a poem exposing sexual misconduct by the senior poet Ko Un, who had long been considered a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Following the legal battles that erupted after her accusations against Ko Un, she went on to found her own press. She marched on. To me, she remains a hero.
Unmasking the ugly face of the giant means risking exclusion from the very community one has longed to belong to. In that sense, Choi Young-mi is not so different from Kim Myeong-sun, and I believe we, the readers on International Women’s Day, are not so different either. To read, to know, and acknowledge the injustices embedded in systems that persist even in art—where we seek equality, even revolution—is our answer to Kim Myeong-sun. Writing was the form of resistance she chose. And we, too, choose to take that risk.
We do this perhaps to preserve our dignity, but not only for ourselves. Choi Young-mi’s courage answers Kim Myeong-sun across time, travelling across generations and borders. And through other women writers, like Jeong Yi-hyun and Park So-ran, too. The tree of courage reaches this moment, as I sit at my desk sharing their stories with you on this day.
Further Reading
Kim Myeong-sun, 김명순 문학전집, ed. Nam Eun-hye. Seoul: Pureun Sasang, 2010.
Kim Myeong-sun, Love Is Boundless (사랑은 무한대이다), ed. Park So-ran. Seoul: Pinde, 2023.
Choi Young-mi, At Thirty, the Party Is Over (서른, 잔치는 끝났다). Seoul: Changbi, 1994.
Choi Young-mi. Things That Will Never Come Again (다시 오지 않는 것들). Seoul: Imi, 2019.
Choi Young-mi. “나는 분노한다. ‘under15’에.” Sisa Journal, March 29, 2025.
Jeong Yi-hyun. “20th Century Modern Girl” (20세기 모단 걸). In Romantic Love and Society (낭만적 사랑과 사회). Seoul: Munhakgwa Jiseongsa, 2003.
Kim Byul-ah, Tansil (탄실). Seoul: Haenam, 2016.
Choi Jung Ja, The Life and Works of Korean Poet Kim Myŏng-sun: The Flower Dream of a Woman Born Too Soon. Routledge, 2024.
“Five Poems by Kim Myŏng-sun.” Asymptote Journal. https://www.asymptotejournal.com/poetry/five-poems-kim-myong-sun/
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