
Kim Seungok
김승옥
“It’s not true to say that Mujin has no noted product. I know what it is. It is the fog. When you went outside in the morning after getting out of bed, the fog would have surrounded Mujin, like enemy soldiers who had advanced in the night; and the mountains which normally surrounded the town would be gone, banished by the fog to some faraway, invisible place. … It couldn’t be grasped in the hand, and yet it was clearly there, surrounding men, cutting them off from things at a distance.” (《안개》, 스타북스, 2022 / Record of a Journey to Mujin, ASIA, 2014)
Kim Seungok is a leading literary figure of 1960s Korea, known for his portrayals of ordinary people lost in feelings of emptiness and loss against the backdrop of Korea’s rapid urbanization and industrialization.