Shin Dalja

Shin Dalja began her literary career when she was twenty. Thus, it is no overstatement that she has been with poetry for over half a century. She has expressed life's struggles with delicate sensibility, and has pioneered and represented the domain of women's poetry in Korean literature. She has won the Yeongrang Poetry prize, the Gong-cho Literature Prize, the Kim Junseong Literature Prize, the Daesan Literary Award, and the Chong Chi-Yong Literature Prize. Her contribution towards developing the cultural arts was recognized and she won the Silver Crown Order of Cultural Merit. She has been the president of the Society of Korean Poets, and was also selected as ‘A Writer to Watch This Year’ at the 2016 Seoul International Book Fair, receiving much honor as a poet can.

Poet Shin Dalja debuted into the literary circle in 1972 by the recommendation of poet Park Mog-Weol in Hyundae Munhak. In 1973, she published her first poetry collection Bongheonmunja (봉헌문자) with 40 poems. In the foreword of this poetry collection, Park Mog-Weol said that “rather than resistance or interested toward extravagance or morality, she reveals ‘the truth of feet that dedicate themselves/ within the silence of pain’ – omitted – that she arouses in us wide human sympathy”. Through writing poetry for almost fifty years, Shin Dalja has suggested positivity and tolerance of higher levels rather than separation and exclusion. She dreams of silence that is indifferent to worldly objects. Shin Dalja creates generous and delicate middle-aged women as narrators, looking back on a life of desolation with free and humorous voice. She shows a poetic style that expresses interest toward motherhood and femininity that breathe life into a life of barrenness. Recently, her poetic tendencies have shifted toward expressing her will to reach a world of kind silence, a world of true words that awaken the eyes of the soul, and a world of life that overflows with peace and energy.

Shin Dalja was born in 1943 in Geochang, Gyeongnam. She was born as the fifth daughter among one son and six daughters. Her adolescence was relatively stable under her businessman father, but her mother advised her that “women must also study”, which led her to go study in Busan during her high school years. When she was in her second year of high school, she won the Gyeongnam essay contest, which gave her the chance to go to Sookmyung Women's University for Korean Literature. She graduated in 1965. In 1964, her poem “Hwansangui Bam” (환상의 밤 A Night of Fantasy) was selected by Yeosang, a women's magazine. She started her literary career in 1972 when her poems “Bal” (발 Feet), and “Cheo-eum moksori” (처음 목소리 The First Voice) were recommended by Park Mog-Weol to Hyundae Munhak. She was also a member of Munchae with poets Yoo An-Jin and Lee Hyang-Ah, publishing poems that sensually express aesthetic sensibility specific to women, acquiring a wide readership. She graduated from Sookmyung Women's University for Korean Literature, graduated from the same university's graduate school, and have earned a doctorate for literature. She was a Korean literature professor at Pyeongtaek University, and then a creative writing professor at Myongji University. From 2012 she became the president of the Society of Korean Poets. She is also a member of the National Academy of arts of The Republic of Korea. She was selected as the first chairperson of the Policy Committee for Promotion of Literature.