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Yeom Sang-seop, 1897 to 1963. A chronology, and the 1936 story Unemployed.

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Overview

Yeom Sang-seop, pen name Hoengbo, was born on 30 August 1897 in Jongno, Seoul, the third son of Yeom Gyu-hwan, and died on 14 March 1963 of rectal cancer at his house in Seongbuk-dong. him as a realist who, from the colonial years through the period after liberation, published some 150 short stories over more than forty years. The chronology in the core runs, among other marks, as follows. In September 1907 he entered the ordinary school attached to the government normal school; in 1909 he moved to Boseong elementary and graduated; in 1911 he entered Boseong middle school and stayed through the first term of the second year. On 12 September 1912 he went to Japan, moving from Mapo middle school to Seigakuin and then to Kyoto Prefectural Second Middle School, from which he graduated in March 1918. In April 1918 he entered the preparatory course at Keio, aiming at the history department, and studied for a year; that November, in the winter break, he began his first work as a reporter at Tsuruga port to raise tuition. In 1919, by way of Nagoya, he learned in Osaka of the March First Movement, and on 6 March 1919 he raised a manse independence rally in Tennoji Park there; from July he spent about five months in jail as an unconvicted prisoner of the Osaka district court, and in December of the same year he became a worker at the Yokohama Gospel print shop. In March 1920 he returned home and joined the political desk at the founding of the Dong-A Ilbo; in July he brought out the coterie magazine Pyeheo (Ruins); in October he left the paper and taught at Osan School, resigning in July 1921 to return to Seoul. In the August 1921 issue of Gaebyeok he published his first story, The Green Frog in the Specimen Room. In September 1922 he edited the weekly Dongmyeong under Choe Nam-seon, and serialized Cemetery, later renamed Before the Manse, in Sin Saenghwal. Further marks include Gold Ring in Gaebyeok in 1924; a resignation in 1925 when Dongmyeong, renamed Sidae Ilbo, suspended publication; a return to Japan on 19 January 1926 to try the Japanese literary world; a return in February 1928 and the serialization of Two Hearts in the Maeil Sinbo from October; marriage on 23 May 1929 to Kim Yeong-ok of the Uiseong Kim clan, and work on the arts desk at the Chosun Ilbo from September, with Frenzy serialized from October; Three Generations in the Chosun Ilbo from January 1931, a resignation in July, and Fig written from November as a sequel; White Dove in the Joseon Jungang Ilbo from November 1932; a return to the Maeil Sinbo in January 1934 and When Peonies Bloom from February; and Discontinuous Line from May 1936, finished in December, after which he left for Manchuria. In March 1937 he was invited as editorial director of the Manseon Ilbo; in April 1938 he briefly went home and took his family back to the post; he returned for his mother’s funeral in July 1938 and his father’s in June 1939, resigned in September, and moved to Andong (安東), where in 1940 he worked in publicity at Daedonghang Construction Company. He met liberation there in 1945, helped organize a residents’ association as vice president, then moved to Sinuiju, and in March 1946 returned to Seoul, living in Donam-dong. In September he became editorial director at the founding of the Kyunghyang Shinmun; in August 1947 he resigned and became a lecturer at Sungkyunkwan University, turning back to writing. In January 1948 he serialized Dawn Wind in the Jayu Sinmun and published the collections The 38th Parallel and Son of Liberation. Short stories followed: Deathbed and Two Bankruptcies in 1949; The Yoke in 1950. A novel, The Season of Ipha, was interrupted by the Korean War; unable to leave, he hid in Seoul, and after the 28 September 1950 recovery he entered the navy, trained, and was commissioned as a major. In March 1951 he worked in the public-information office at navy headquarters in Busan. In January 1952 he wrote Sudden Rain and New Echo; in 1953 he devoted himself to writing, received the Seoul City Culture Prize, joined an arts association, and at the founding of the Hankook Ilbo in September wrote The Widow. In 1954 he became dean of Seorabeol Art College. Later marks include Couple and The Dog That Does Not Bark in 1955; the Asia Freedom Literature Prize in March 1956, with Fatherly Love, Mother, and Traces; the Arts Academy merit award on 17 July 1957; Awkward People, Jealousy of One’s Wife, and Mother and Daughter in 1961; the March First Culture Prize in March 1962; and a Republic of Korea presidential decoration in August 1962. Those dates stay as the chronology states them, and later critical editions are not invented. In The Green Frog in the Specimen Room, a colonial-era protagonist sees himself as a frog dissected in a specimen room, limbs pinned and laid out on a funeral board. Early in the story he remembers a middle-school natural-history class, eight years earlier, when a teacher dissected a green frog, set the steaming organs in alcohol, and, poking with a needle, told the students it was still alive; the scalpel brings to mind a razor in a drawer, and he turns, almost without meaning to, toward taking his own life. In Before the Manse, published the next year, 1922, first as Cemetery, a telegram about a sick wife stops an exam and sends the protagonist home from Japan to Joseon; Japanese police watch the journey, and in Gimcheon, staying at an older brother’s house, he sees that brother, an ordinary-school teacher, lose his footing and slip. The temporal setting is 1919, the year of the March First Movement, and colonial Joseon, the essay says, is dark, like a graveyard — people slowly dying, others cooperating with the colonial power as if they were parasites — which is why the first title was Cemetery. A passage from Kim Seong-gon on Yeom’s writing between two worlds is cited. Going to Japan in 1926 is read as a will to escape colonial reality put into action. The 1920s stories, the essay says, show a wander between a hard look at the present and the ideal of a free society. By the 1930s the will to get out of a gloomy reality appears more often, as in Unemployed, Nam Chung-seo, and Mr. E, until work paused after the 1936 novel the chronology calls Discontinuous Line (one later passage also writes Discontinuity). In Unemployed, written in 1936, when, the essay says, Japanese expropriation was wearing Joseon down and ordinary city people saw little hope, the protagonist Deok-chang, who has been living on his wife Bun-i’s earnings, goes to the café where she worked after she disappears, finds a letter asking that if measures are truly hard the child be discussed with the person concerned and raised well, falls into a dispute with the owner, is taken to the police, and after a night at the owner’s feet gives up the job he had just barely won after a stretch of unemployment — and is unemployed again. The essay reads the scene as a sign that even a minimum of social morality was not working, and will not put the whole of that 1936 picture into Death, it adds, is used often to move a story, sometimes as a hinted or supposed death; in the 1920s it is also a way of escaping a bleak present, shaped by Western and Russian treatments of death and decadence, yet formalized here through dream, and more as a window on a character’s inner life than as an event. Until that 1936 pause, the works still affirm beliefs a person should hold in any situation, and they put a question mark to the society they describe.

— Overview

On 12 September 1912 he went to Japan, moving from Mapo middle school to Seigakuin and then to Kyoto Prefectural Second Middle School, from which he graduated in March 1918. In April 1918 he entered the preparatory course at Keio, aiming at the history department, and studied for a year; that November, in the winter break, he began his first work as a reporter at Tsuruga port to raise tuition. In 1919, by way of Nagoya, he learned in Osaka of the March First Movement, and on 6 March 1919 he raised a manse independence rally in Tennoji Park there; from July he spent about five months in jail as an unconvicted prisoner of the Osaka district court, and in December of the same year he became a worker at the Yokohama Gospel print shop.

In March 1920 he returned home and joined the political desk at the founding of the Dong-A Ilbo; in July he brought out the coterie magazine Pyeheo (Ruins); in October he left the paper and taught at Osan School, resigning in July 1921 to return to Seoul. In the August 1921 issue of Gaebyeok he published his first story, The Green Frog in the Specimen Room. In September 1922 he edited the weekly Dongmyeong under Choe Nam-seon, and serialized Cemetery, later renamed Before the Manse, in Sin Saenghwal.

Further marks include Gold Ring in Gaebyeok in 1924; a resignation in 1925 when Dongmyeong, renamed Sidae Ilbo, suspended publication; a return to Japan on 19 January 1926 to try the Japanese literary world; a return in February 1928 and the serialization of Two Hearts in the Maeil Sinbo from October; marriage on 23 May 1929 to Kim Yeong-ok of the Uiseong Kim clan, and work on the arts desk at the Chosun Ilbo from September, with Frenzy serialized from October; Three Generations in the Chosun Ilbo from January 1931, a resignation in July, and Fig written from November as a sequel; White Dove in the Joseon Jungang Ilbo from November 1932; a return to the Maeil Sinbo in January 1934 and When Peonies Bloom from February; and Discontinuous Line from May 1936, finished in December, after which he left for Manchuria.

In March 1937 he was invited as editorial director of the Manseon Ilbo; in April 1938 he briefly went home and took his family back to the post; he returned for his mother’s funeral in July 1938 and his father’s in June 1939, resigned in September, and moved to Andong (安東), where in 1940 he worked in publicity at Daedonghang Construction Company. He met liberation there in 1945, helped organize a residents’ association as vice president, then moved to Sinuiju, and in March 1946 returned to Seoul, living in Donam-dong.

In September he became editorial director at the founding of the Kyunghyang Shinmun; in August 1947 he resigned and became a lecturer at Sungkyunkwan University, turning back to writing. In January 1948 he serialized Dawn Wind in the Jayu Sinmun and published the collections The 38th Parallel and Son of Liberation. Short stories followed: Deathbed and Two Bankruptcies in 1949; The Yoke in 1950. A novel, The Season of Ipha, was interrupted by the Korean War; unable to leave, he hid in Seoul, and after the 28 September 1950 recovery he entered the navy, trained, and was commissioned as a major.

In March 1951 he worked in the public-information office at navy headquarters in Busan. In January 1952 he wrote Sudden Rain and New Echo; in 1953 he devoted himself to writing, received the Seoul City Culture Prize, joined an arts association, and at the founding of the Hankook Ilbo in September wrote The Widow. In 1954 he became dean of Seorabeol Art College. Later marks include Couple and The Dog That Does Not Bark in 1955; the Asia Freedom Literature Prize in March 1956, with Fatherly Love, Mother, and Traces; the Arts Academy merit award on 17 July 1957; Awkward People, Jealousy of One’s Wife, and Mother and Daughter in 1961; the March First Culture Prize in March 1962; and a Republic of Korea presidential decoration in August 1962.

Those dates stay as the chronology states them, and later critical editions are not invented. In The Green Frog in the Specimen Room, a colonial-era protagonist sees himself as a frog dissected in a specimen room, limbs pinned and laid out on a funeral board. Early in the story he remembers a middle-school natural-history class, eight years earlier, when a teacher dissected a green frog, set the steaming organs in alcohol, and, poking with a needle, told the students it was still alive; the scalpel brings to mind a razor in a drawer, and he turns, almost without meaning to, toward taking his own life.

In Before the Manse, published the next year, 1922, first as Cemetery, a telegram about a sick wife stops an exam and sends the protagonist home from Japan to Joseon; Japanese police watch the journey, and in Gimcheon, staying at an older brother’s house, he sees that brother, an ordinary-school teacher, lose his footing and slip. The temporal setting is 1919, the year of the March First Movement, and colonial Joseon, the essay says, is dark, like a graveyard — people slowly dying, others cooperating with the colonial power as if they were parasites — which is why the first title was Cemetery.

A passage from Kim Seong-gon on Yeom’s writing between two worlds is cited. Going to Japan in 1926 is read as a will to escape colonial reality put into action. The 1920s stories, the essay says, show a wander between a hard look at the present and the ideal of a free society. By the 1930s the will to get out of a gloomy reality appears more often, as in Unemployed, Nam Chung-seo, and Mr. E, until work paused after the 1936 novel the chronology calls Discontinuous Line (one later passage also writes Discontinuity).

In Unemployed, written in 1936, when, the essay says, Japanese expropriation was wearing Joseon down and ordinary city people saw little hope, the protagonist Deok-chang, who has been living on his wife Bun-i’s earnings, goes to the café where she worked after she disappears, finds a letter asking that if measures are truly hard the child be discussed with the person concerned and raised well, falls into a dispute with the owner, is taken to the police, and after a night at the owner’s feet gives up the job he had just barely won after a stretch of unemployment — and is unemployed again.

The essay reads the scene as a sign that even a minimum of social morality was not working, and will not put the whole of that 1936 picture into Death, it adds, is used often to move a story, sometimes as a hinted or supposed death; in the 1920s it is also a way of escaping a bleak present, shaped by Western and Russian treatments of death and decadence, yet formalized here through dream, and more as a window on a character’s inner life than as an event.

Until that 1936 pause, the works still affirm beliefs a person should hold in any situation, and they put a question mark to the society they describe.

— Contents and key concepts

From 30 August 1897 to 14 March 1963

Yeom Sang-seop, pen name Hoengbo, was born on 30 August 1897 in Jongno, the third son of Yeom Gyu-hwan, and died on 14 March 1963 in Seongbuk-dong. him as a realist who published some 150 short stories over more than forty years, from the colonial period through the years after liberation.

The chronology runs from ordinary school in 1907 and a crossing to Japan on 12 September 1912, through a manse rally in Osaka on 6 March 1919 and about five months in jail, a return in March 1920 to the new Dong-A Ilbo, The Green Frog in the Specimen Room in 1921, Three Generations in 1931, and a move to Manchuria after Discontinuous Line in 1936. He met liberation in Andong in 1945, returned to Seoul in March 1946, entered the navy after the 28 September 1950 recovery, became dean of Seorabeol Art College in 1954, and received the March First Culture Prize in March 1962. Those dates stay as the chronology states them.

The 1936 story Unemployed, and a look back at the 1920s

In The Green Frog in the Specimen Room a colonial-era protagonist sees himself as a dissected frog, limbs pinned on a funeral board; a remembered school dissection brings a razor to mind. In Before the Manse, published in 1922, first as Cemetery, a telegram sends the protagonist home from Japan in the shadow of 1919, and colonial Joseon is dark, like a graveyard.

In Unemployed, written in 1936, Deok-chang looks for his missing wife, falls into a dispute at her café, and gives up the job he had barely won. The essay reads the scene as a sign that even a minimum of social morality was not working, and finds in the 1930s a stronger will to get out of a gloomy reality, until work paused after that year’s novel. The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

Yeom Sang-seop, pen name Hoengbo (橫步), born 30 August 1897 in Jongno, Seoul, third son of Yeom Gyu-hwan (廉圭桓); given name Sang-seop (想涉). Died 14 March 1963 of rectal cancer at his house in Seongbuk-dong. A realist who, from the colonial years through the period after liberation, published some 150 short stories over more than forty years. Chronology as the core states it. September 1907: entered the ordinary school attached to the government normal school. 1909: moved to Boseong elementary and graduated. 1911: entered Boseong middle school, stayed through the first term of the second year. 12 September 1912: went to Japan; Mapo middle school, then Seigakuin, then Kyoto Prefectural Second Middle School, graduated March 1918. April 1918: entered the preparatory course at Keio, aiming at the history department, studied one year. November: in the winter break, first work as a reporter at Tsuruga port to raise tuition. 1919: by way of Nagoya, learned in Osaka of the March First Movement. 6 March 1919: raised a manse independence rally in Tennoji Park, Osaka. From July, about five months in jail as an unconvicted prisoner of the Osaka district court. December of the same year: worker at the Yokohama Gospel print shop. Published in Hakjigwang, Samgwang, and elsewhere. March 1920: returned home and joined the political desk at the founding of the Dong-A Ilbo. July: brought out the coterie magazine Pyeheo (Ruins). October: left the paper and taught at Osan School. July 1921: resigned teaching and returned to Seoul. August 1921 issue of Gaebyeok: first story, The Green Frog in the Specimen Room. September 1922: edited the weekly Dongmyeong under Choe Nam-seon; serialized Cemetery, later renamed Before the Manse, in Sin Saenghwal. 1924: Gold Ring in Gaebyeok. 1925: resigned the social-affairs desk when Dongmyeong, renamed Sidae Ilbo, suspended publication; Telephone and Rotary Press in Joseon Mundan. 19 January 1926: went to Japan again to try the Japanese literary world. February 1928: returned; from October, Two Hearts serialized in the Maeil Sinbo. 23 May 1929: married Kim Yeong-ok of the Uiseong Kim clan. September: arts desk at the Chosun Ilbo; from October, Frenzy serialized. January 1931: Three Generations in the Chosun Ilbo. July: resigned. From November: Fig written in the Maeil Sinbo as a sequel to Three Generations. November 1932: White Dove in the Joseon Jungang Ilbo. January 1934: joined the Maeil Sinbo; from February, When Peonies Bloom. May 1936: Discontinuous Line in the Maeil Sinbo; finished in December, then left for Manchuria. March 1937: invited as editorial director of the Manseon Ilbo. April 1938: briefly went home and took his family back to the post. July 1938: returned for his mother’s funeral. June 1939: returned for his father’s funeral. September: resigned and moved to Andong (安東). 1940: publicity work at Daedonghang Construction Company in Andong. 1945: met liberation in Andong; helped organize a residents’ association as vice president; moved to Sinuiju. March 1946: returned to Seoul, lived in Donam-dong. September: editorial director at the founding of the Kyunghyang Shinmun. August 1947: resigned and became a lecturer at Sungkyunkwan University, turning back to writing. January 1948: serialized Dawn Wind in the Jayu Sinmun; published the collections The 38th Parallel and Son of Liberation. 1949: Deathbed, Two Bankruptcies. 1950: The Yoke; the novel The Season of Ipha interrupted by the Korean War; unable to leave, he hid in Seoul; after the 28 September 1950 recovery he entered the navy, trained, and was commissioned as a major. March 1951: public-information office at navy headquarters in Busan. January 1952: Sudden Rain, New Echo. 1953: devoted himself to writing; Seoul City Culture Prize; joined an arts association; at the founding of the Hankook Ilbo in September, wrote The Widow. 1954: dean of Seorabeol Art College. 1955: Couple, The Dog That Does Not Bark. March 1956: Asia Freedom Literature Prize; Fatherly Love, Mother, Traces. 17 July 1957: Arts Academy merit award. 1961: Awkward People, Jealousy of One’s Wife, Mother and Daughter. March 1962: March First Culture Prize. August 1962: a Republic of Korea presidential decoration. Those dates stay as the chronology states them; later critical editions are not invented. In The Green Frog in the Specimen Room, a colonial-era protagonist sees himself as a frog dissected in a specimen room, limbs pinned and laid out on a funeral board. Early in the story he remembers a middle-school natural-history class, eight years earlier: a teacher dissected a green frog, set the steaming organs in alcohol, and, poking with a needle, told the students it was still alive. The scalpel brings to mind a razor in a drawer, and he turns, almost without meaning to, toward taking his own life. The long schoolroom memory is translated here, not copied as consecutive Korean. In Before the Manse, published the next year, 1922, first as Cemetery: a telegram about a sick wife stops an exam and sends the protagonist home from Japan to Joseon; Japanese police watch the journey; leaving Busan he stays in Gimcheon at an older brother’s house and sees that brother, an ordinary-school teacher, lose his footing and slip. Temporal setting 1919, the year of the March First Movement; colonial Joseon is dark, like a graveyard — people slowly dying, others cooperating with the colonial power as if they were parasites — which is why the first title was Cemetery. Kim Seong-gon is cited on Yeom’s writing between two worlds. Going to Japan in 1926 is read as a will to escape colonial reality put into action. The 1920s stories show a wander between a hard look at the present and the ideal of a free society. By the 1930s the will to get out of a gloomy reality appears more often, as in Unemployed, Nam Chung-seo, and Mr. E, until work paused after the 1936 novel the chronology calls Discontinuous Line (one later passage also writes Discontinuity). In Unemployed, written in 1936, when Japanese expropriation was wearing Joseon down and ordinary city people saw little hope: Deok-chang, living on his wife Bun-i’s earnings, goes to the café where she worked after she disappears; finds a letter asking that if measures are truly hard the child be discussed with the person concerned and raised well; falls into a dispute with the owner; is taken to the police; after ten o’clock is dragged back to the café; the owner will let him go only if they spend a night and he returns to the station the next day; pleading for a child left alone does not move the owner; after a night at the owner’s feet, his first day at a company at nine is lost, and, like a rat in a jar, he slips into resignation and is unemployed again. Café and letter passages are translated here, not copied as consecutive Korean. The essay reads the scene as a sign that even a minimum of social morality was not working. Death is used often to move a story, sometimes as a hinted or supposed death; in the 1920s it is also a way of escaping a bleak present, shaped by Western and Russian treatments of death and decadence, yet formalized here through dream, and more as a window on a character’s inner life than as an event. Until the 1936 pause, the works still affirm beliefs a person should hold in any situation, and they put a question mark to the society they describe.

Last updated: 14 November 2026

Frequently asked questions

When was Yeom Sang-seop born and when did he die?

He was born on 30 August 1897 in Jongno, Seoul, and died on 14 March 1963 of rectal cancer at his house in Seongbuk-dong.

What happens in the 1936 story Unemployed?

Deok-chang, after his wife Bun-i disappears, goes to her café, falls into a dispute, spends a night under constraint, and gives up the job he had barely won, becoming unemployed again.

How does the essay read the early stories?

The Green Frog in the Specimen Room and Before the Manse, in the 1920s, show a wander between a hard look at colonial reality and the ideal of a free society; Joseon in 1919 is dark, like a graveyard.

— Overview

— Contents and key concepts

From 30 August 1897 to 14 March 1963

The 1936 story Unemployed, and a look back at the 1920s

Sources

Frequently asked questions

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