Geum Hee

Roh, Taehoon, “Review of Choi Eun-mi’s Mongryeonjeongjeon (목련정전 The Story of Magnolia), Geum Hee’s Sesange eomneun naui jip, and Jin Bo-gyeong’s Geseuteuhauseu (게스트하우스 Guesthouse),” Jaeumgwa moeum (자음과모음Vowels and Consonants) Spring 2016, 376–385.

Roh, Sin-ju, “Introspection of Modernity in Kim Geum Hee’s Fiction,” Jangbaeksan (장백산 Mount Baekdu) January 2014, 205–217.

《시린 발》(공저), 걷는사람, 2018 / Sirin bal (Cold Feet) (co-authored), Walker, 2018

In Sesange eomnun naui jip (2015), her first short story collection published in Korea, Geum Hee depicts not only the experience of moving to South Korea but also the identity conflicts of ethnic Koreans living in China as minorities and the issue of North Korean defectors as seen from the community of ethnic Koreans living in China. She also captures the issues of the family system under capitalism, disintegration of agricultural communities, and the ethical degradation resulting from materialism.

《세상에 없는 나의 집》, 창비, 2015 / Sesange eomnun naui jip (My Home Nowhere in The World, Changbi, 2015.

Lee, Gyeong-jae, “Another Perspective on the North Korean Defectors,” Ok-hwa, translated by Jeon Seung-hee, Asia, 2015.

She became known to Korean readers with the publication of “Ok-hwa,” a short story about North Korean defectors in the spring 2014 edition of The Quarterly Changbi. This work was also translated and published in a bilingual English-Korean edition of Asia Publisher's “K Fiction” series. It was also published in her second short story collection Sesange eomnun naui jip (2015), which is also her first short story collection to be published in Korea.

《슈뢰딩거의 상자》, 료녕민족출판사, 2013 / Shuroedinggeoui sangja (Schrödinger's Box), Liaoning National Publisher, 2013.

Dumangang Literary Award (두만강문학상) (2011)

In 2007, “Gaebul,” a short story about the true meaning of love, earned her the Yun Dongju New Writer's Prize, awarded by Yeonbyeonmunhak (Yanbian Literature), the literary journal published by the Yanbian Writers Association (연변작가협회). In 2009, she received attention for her short story “Paran ribongui mojareul sseun yeoja” (파란 리봉의 모자를 쓴 여자 A Woman with a Blue Ribboned-Hat). In 2010, she was invited to the Lu Xun Literary Institute in Beijing to study creative writing, and, in 2011, she received the Dumangang Literary Award (두만강문학상). Her first short story collection titled Syuroedinggeoui sangja (슈뢰딩거의 상자 Schrödinger's Box) was published in China in 2013. The next year, she received the Grand Prize in fiction from Yeonbyeonmunhak for her novella Noran haebaragikkot (노란 해바라기꽃 Yellow Sunflower), about a woman who lost her direction in life after her family fell apart.

Geum Hee's birth in China is why most of the setting or theme in her story stories set with Joseonjok or refugees from North Korea who have crossed over to China and/or Korea. She first started writing in 2006 where she wrote novels, and her first book Syuroedinggeoui sangja was published in 2007. She mainly writes her book to express what she feels and sees beyond a person's ethnicity and race. The writer has also mentioned that she wanted herself to feel free through writing her books. The episodes of her books are influenced by the people around her who were refugee families from North Korea, a Joseonjok who married a South Korean exchange student and similar themes.

Geum was born in Jiutai, Changchun in northeastern China's Jilin province. She is ethnically Korean (Joseonjok), and she grew speaking both Korean and Chinese. She graduated from the Yanji College of Education and worked as a teacher at a Chinese-Korean elementary school. After quitting her teaching job, she worked in various jobs in China and South Korea, where she lived with her husband for two years from 2002 to 2004, cleaning and serving at a restaurant. Eventually she settled down in Changchun, China, and began to write fiction. She also finished the Thirteenth Advanced and Middle-Aged Writers class at the Lu Xun Literary Institute in Beijing.

Geum Hee (금희; born 1979) is an ethnic Korean writer, who lives in China and writes in Korean. She realistically depicts the issue of identity for ethnic Koreans living in China and the diaspora experience, and she also continues to deepen her creative world by expanding the issue of migration to a transnational level. After making her literary debut in 2007 with the short story “Gaebul” (개불 Spoon Worm), she broke into the South Korean literary scene through the short story “Ok-hwa” (옥화 Ok-hwa) about North Korean defectors in 2014. She received the Baek Shin-ae Literature Prize and the Shin Dong-yup Prize for Literature with her short story collection Sesange eomnun naui jip (세상에 없는 나의 집 My Home Nowhere in The World).