Baptism of Soil

Yi Ik-sang

nov 2014 · 20th Century Korean Literature Libro 40 · Literature Translation Institute of Korea

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Myeongho and his wife Hyejeong are intellectuals who have chosen to leave behind their lives in the big city and live close to the earth in the countryside. Yet things do not work out as neatly as they had hoped; Myeongho lacks the motivation to begin farming, and Hyejeong becomes more frustrated with her husband as the days go by. When they finally walk barefoot on the rich, dark soil and put their hands to their tools, they feel a joy they have never felt before. Yet the two continue to struggle with the choices they have made for their lives. Yi Ik-sang’s portrait of this young couple breathes life into a depiction of a common contradiction of early Korean history: the disconnect between the intellectuals and the lives of the peasants they held up as a pure ideal.

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A novelist as well as a journalist, Yi Ik-sang (1895 – 1935) worked as a reporter for newspapers such as The Chosun Ilbo, The Dong-A Ilbo, and Korea Daily News. He was born in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province, in 1895, completed his schooling at Boseong High School, and then graduated from the journalism department of Nihon University in Japan. As a university student he was exposed to socialist thought, which was popular at the time, and he threw himself into the progressive literature movement. He made his debut as a novelist with a publication in The Light of Learning in 1921, and in 1923 he became a member of PASKYULA, the first proletarian literary organization in Korea; when PASKYULA merged with the Society of the Blazing Throng (Yeomgunsa) to form the Korea Artista Proleta Federacio, or KAPF, Yi Ik-sang was one of its initial members.

His most prominent works include short stories such as “Frenzy” (Gwangnan), “Baptism of Soil” (Heulgui serye), and “The Banished” (Jjotgieo ganeun ideul).