- The poems of Jung Jib-Yong, and the sentences of Lee Tae-Jun.

This sentence represents two specialties of Lee Tae-Jun. One is the beauty of Lee Tae-Jun’s sentences and the other, his influence. Lee Tae-Jun was a Korean novelist, who was born 4 November 1904.

His well-known works such as "Dalbam" (fiction written in 1930s), "Doldari" (fiction written in 1943) are on the list of Korean high school textbooks. Since the curriculum of high school education has changed, the number of Lee Tae-Jun’s literary works on the textbook list increased from two to five. This phenomenon reflects that the Education Ministry’s interest in the works of Lee Tae-Jun has increased.

He was not a well-known novelist in the past due to the fact that he defected to North Korea before the Korean War. However, recently, since his importance has been discovered, the public has started to pay attention to his works.

For people who want to study classical sentences, his text book "Munjang-ganghwa" is considered as the principal example. He asserts that people should express their own thoughts, and describe ideas in their own ways.

This idea shows his thought that “Sentences are the People” and these writings are expressed well in his short stories. Lee Tae-Jun’s short stories show various perspectives, from little details in our daily lives, to the transitions in people's lives. One well-known example is Hwang Su-Geon, who is the main character in "Dalbam". Lee Tae-Jun tells the audience about his life through the character in the story.

In addition, he was one of the pioneering leaders in the area of modern literature and formed Gu In-Hoi (a literary social gathering).

As a feature editor in Chosun ChoongAng Ilbo, he arranged for other famous novelists, Park Tae Jun and Lee Sang, to publish their novel’s "Soseolga Gubo Ssi Ui Iilil" and "Ogamdo" respectively.

Furthermore, Lee Tae-Jun worked as an editor of MunJang, the literature magazine, which was founded by Park Du-Jin, Jeo Ji-Hun and Park Mock-Wal amongst others. Furthermore, Lee Tae-Jun was highly influential both in direct and indirect ways in 1930’s literature. This means he influenced literature in so many different ways in his time.

- A small cottage in a forest where literary people used to meet.

The place where Lee Tae-Jun lived while he was working as a writer is located in Seongbuk-gu. The name of the place is Suyeonsanbang (수연산방, 壽硯山房) which means “a small cottage in a forest where literary people used to meet.” In his novel, the reader can notice that many of the main characters resemble Lee Tae-Jun, because he found material for the novel from his daily life. Therefore, the background of a lot of his short stories, such as "HaebangJeonhu" (a novel written in 1943), is Seongbuk-gu. Now, Suyeonsanbang, the place where Lee Tae-Jun used to stay, is a famous traditional teahouse. Also, since Suyeonsanbang became recognized as a foothold of Seongbuk-gu’s culture, a Suyeonsanbang (held Wall-Wall) festival was held by Kookmin University and Seongbuk-gu in 2011.

Lee Jung-Kwon(Reporter)

gazgaz1213@kookmin.ac.kr