Novelist Jo Kyungran has won the ‘2024 Kim Seung-ok Literary Award’. The organizer of the Kim Seung-ok Literary Award, ‘Moonhwan,’ announced on the 20th that after reviewing 27 literary magazines and a total of 165 works, they selected Jo Kyungran’s short story ‘Those’ as the award-winning work.
The judging panel praised Jo’s work, stating, “The novelist must be a craftsman of honest and precise sentences about life before being a storyteller, and it makes us think if there is a true story that cannot be expressed or felt without the texture of delicately crafted texts, and if the novelist has to be a composer who arranges and rearranges those crafted sentences.”
The Kim Seung-ok Literary Award was established in 2013 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the debut of Kim Seung-ok, a novelist representing Korean modern literature. Since 2019, it has been hosted by the publishing house ‘Moonhwan’ with support from Suncheon City, Jeollanam-do. The award focuses on short stories published by authors for more than 10 years, selecting one grand prize and six excellent works each year. Since last year, blind judging has been introduced to solely focus on the completeness of the work, excluding the author’s previous works.
In addition to Jo Kyungran, the excellence awards were given to Kang Taesik’s ‘But This Night’, Ban Suyeon’s ‘Fragments’, Shin Yongmok’s ‘Shepherds’ Cooperative Association’, An Boyoon’s ‘That Gathering’, Lee Seungeun’s ‘Fragments’, and Cho Haejin’s ‘For Tomorrow’s Bud’. The works and judging opinions of each piece will be included in the autumn issue of the quarterly ‘Moonhwan’.
The grand prize winner receives a prize of 50 million won, while the excellence award winners receive 5 million won each. The ‘2024 Kim Seung-ok Literary Award Winning Works Collection’ will be published in September. Moonhwan also announced the winners of the Rookie Award.
In the poetry category, Lee Hyuna’s ‘Critique’ and four others were selected, while in the novel category, Ju Nayoung’s ‘Our Walk’ was chosen. Professor Kang Jihee, who was in charge of judging the novel category, praised the work saying, “I willingly believe that the author understands the rhythm of life” and expressed a desire to continue seeing the author’s craftsmanship of adjusting minute shades, measuring the long waves of pain left behind, and creating shadows of things that cannot be ultimately expressed.
In the criticism category, Moonhwan selected the work of author Danyo, ‘Reference and Creation – City’s Proposition of Exchange, and as a format of resistance as text’. The works selected for the Rookie Award and judging opinions will be included in the autumn issue of the quarterly ‘Moonhwan’.