Kim Myung-sun

Kim Myeong-sun was born in Pyongyang, Joseon in 1896. Kim attended Chinmyeong Girls' School in Seoul in 1908 where she was considered a good student, but she was bullied due to her mother's status as a kisaeng. She was also mistreated by her step-mother's family, leading her to drop out of school in 1911. In 1913, she went to Tokyo to study at Kojimachi's Girls' School, but did not complete her studies there. She soon returned to Korea to earn her degree at Sungmyeon's Girls' School. In 1919, she joined the Creation group, Korea's first literary circle, which was organized by Kim Dong-in and other Korean students in Tokyo. She briefly worked as a reporter for the newspaper Maeil Sinmun, and from 1927 to 1930 she worked in film. She then suffered from financial problems and succumbed to mental illness late in life.

Kim made her literary debut in 1917, in a magazine edited by Ch'oe Namsŏn called Youth (소년; Sonyŏn), with a novella titled Mysterious Girl (의문의 소녀; Ŭimunŭi sonyŏ) She began publishing her poetry in 1921, and became known for her keen psychological portraits, with her 1921 novella Turkey (칠면조; Ch'ilmyŏnjo), which was published in the magazine Enlightenment (개벽; Kaebyŏk). She continued publishing as late as 1925. Relatively little is currently known about her work because, as Kim Yung-Hee notes, scholars have not studied her and are currently "attempting to excavate her lost works in order to better assess her position in the lineage of modern Korean women fiction writers."

A Girl of Mystery, in Questioning Minds (University of Hawaii Press, 2009) ISBN 978-0-824-83409-8 Collected Works of the First Korean Female Writer Kim Myeong-sun (BookLab, 2022) ISBN 979-11-6836-249-9

Dubious Girl (의문의 소녀), 1917 Turkey (칠면조; 七面鳥), 1921 Lonely People (외로운 사람들), 1924 When I Look Back (돌아다 볼 때), 1924 Tansil and Juyeong (탄실이와 주영이), 1924 Night of Burning (뭇는 날 밤), 1925 The Vault of Heaven (창궁; 蒼穹), 1925 The Guest (손님), 1926 I Love (나는 사랑한다), 1926 Like a Stranger (모르는 사람갓치), 1929