Richard E. Kim

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.

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).

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 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.

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.

Kim brings back characters from The Martyred in this novel set around a fictional coup d'état in South Korea (such as the one that occurred in 1961) and about the ethical dilemma encountered by a group of army officers as they realize that morality may require them to do horrific deeds. Major Lee (the captain of the previous novel) wants to use peaceful means to change the corrupt civilian government, believing that violence cannot be used to end violence. But after removing General Ham, the other conspirators want to punish him with execution. Lee is contrasted by his friend Colonel Min, the group leader who prefers more forceful methods, and as the events spiral beyond the control of the conspirators, Min separates himself from Lee's calls for non-violence; still, after the coup's success, Min acknowledges to Lee that Lee's focus on remaining innocent, even if it is unrealistic, prevents Min from being seen as anything other than a murderer.

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).

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.

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.