Yi Seungu

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, the 2008 Nobel Laureate for Literature, has a deep affection for Korean literature. During his year-long stay in Korea as a visiting professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, he held book readings with Korean authors on several occasions. At the press conference after the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony, he stated that “Korean literature is quite worthy of the Nobel Literature Prize,” and that “Personally, I would say that Lee Seung-u is one of the likely Korean candidates for the prize.”

Yi Seungu's literary career started with his novel A Portrait of Erysichton, inspired by his shock at the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981. This work received the New Writers Award from Korean Literature Monthly. In 1993 Yi Seungu's The Reverse Side of Life was awarded the first Daesan Literary Award. Other literary awards received by Yi Seungu include the East West Literature Prize (for I Will Live Long), the Contemporary Literature Award for Fiction, and the Hwang Sun-won Literary Award. In 2021 he won the Yi Sang Literary Award, one of the most prestigious Korean literary awards.

Yi Seungu (Korean: 이승우, born 21 February 1959) is a South Korean writer.

Yi Seungu was born in Jangheung County, South Jeolla Province, South Korea in 1959. After graduating from Seoul Theological University, Yi Seungu studied at Yonsei University Graduate School of Theology. Widely considered to be one of the most outstanding writers to have emerged in South Korea after the political repression of the 1980s, he is today a professor of Korean literature at Chosun University.