The Most Famous

WRITERS from South Korea

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This page contains a list of the greatest South Korean Writers. The pantheon dataset contains 7,302 Writers, 9 of which were born in South Korea. This makes South Korea the birth place of the 64th most number of Writers behind Nigeria, and Indonesia.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary South Korean Writers of all time. This list of famous South Korean Writers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of South Korean Writers.

Photo of Sin Saimdang

1. Sin Saimdang (1504 - 1551)

With an HPI of 62.13, Sin Saimdang is the most famous South Korean Writer.  Her biography has been translated into 29 different languages on wikipedia.

Shin Saimdang (Korean: 신사임당; Hanja: 申師任堂; 29 October 1504 – 17 May 1551) was a Korean artist, writer, calligraphist, and poet, who lived during the Joseon period. She was born in Gangneung, Gangwon Province. Her birth home, Ojukheon, which is also her maternal family's home, is well-preserved to this day. She was the mother of the Korean Confucian scholar Yi Yi. Often held up as a model of Confucian ideals, her respectful nickname was Eojin ("Wise Mother"). Her real name was Shin In-seon (신인선; 申仁善). Her pen names were Saim (사임; 師任), Saimdang (사임당; 師任堂), Inimdang (인임당; 姻姙堂), and Imsajae (임사재; 姙師齊). She was a contemporary of the poet Heo Nansseolheon, and the two women were considered rivals.

Photo of Kim Bu-sik

2. Kim Bu-sik (1075 - 1151)

With an HPI of 58.25, Kim Bu-sik is the 2nd most famous South Korean Writer.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Kim Bu-sik (Korean: 김부식; Hanja: 金富軾; 1075–1151) was a Korean calligrapher, military general, philosopher, poet, and politician during the Goryeo period. He was a scion of the Silla royalty and a member of the Gyeongju Kim clan. Later he was the supreme chancellor from 1136 to 1142 and was in charge of suppression of the Myocheong rebellion. Kim is best known for supervising the compilation of the Samguk Sagi, the oldest extant written Korean history.

Photo of Ko Un

3. Ko Un (b. 1933)

With an HPI of 56.42, Ko Un is the 3rd most famous South Korean Writer.  His biography has been translated into 24 different languages.

Ko Un (Korean: 고은; born 1 August 1933) is a South Korean poet whose works have been translated and published in more than fifteen countries. He had been imprisoned many times due to his role in the campaign for Korean democracy and was later mentioned in Korea as one of the front runners for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Photo of Na Hye-sok

4. Na Hye-sok (1896 - 1948)

With an HPI of 54.39, Na Hye-sok is the 4th most famous South Korean Writer.  Her biography has been translated into 32 different languages.

Na Hye-sŏk (Korean: 나혜석, April 28, 1896 – December 10, 1948) was a Korean feminist, poet, writer, painter, educator, and journalist. Her art name was Jeongwol (정월; 晶月). She was a pioneering Korean feminist writer and painter. She was the first female professional painter and the first feminist writer in Korea. She created some of the earliest Western-style paintings in Korea, and published feminist novels and short stories. She became well known as a feminist because of her criticism of the marital institution in the early 20th century.

Photo of Uhwudong

5. Uhwudong (1430 - 1480)

With an HPI of 53.90, Uhwudong is the 5th most famous South Korean Writer.  Her biography has been translated into 22 different languages.

Eowudong or Uhwudong (Korean: 어우동; Hanja: 於宇同; 1442 – 18 October 1480), also known as Eoeuludong (어을우동; 於乙宇同), née Park (박; 朴), was a Korean dancer, writer, artist, and poet from a noble family in the Joseon period of the 15th century. Most of her work has not been preserved. She is described to be one of the evil women from the Joseon Dynasty along with Queen Munjeong, Jang Nok-su, and Royal Noble Consort Hui.

Photo of Yi Kwang-su

6. Yi Kwang-su (1892 - 1950)

With an HPI of 53.83, Yi Kwang-su is the 6th most famous South Korean Writer.  His biography has been translated into 22 different languages.

Yi Gwangsu (Korean: 이광수; 1892–1950) was a Korean writer and poet, and a notable Korean independence and nationalist activist until his later turn towards collaboration with the Japanese. His pen names were Chunwon and Goju. Yi is best known for his novel Mujeong (Heartless), sometimes described as the first Korean novel. Yi Gwangsu was born Yi Bogyeong on February 1, 1892.

Photo of Heo Nanseolheon

7. Heo Nanseolheon (1563 - 1589)

With an HPI of 52.86, Heo Nanseolheon is the 7th most famous South Korean Writer.  Her biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Heo Nanseolheon (1563 – 19 March 1589), was a Korean painter and poet of the mid-Joseon dynasty. She was the younger sister of Heo Bong, a politician and political writer, and elder to Heo Gyun, a prominent writer of the time and credited as the author of The Tale of Hong Gildong. Her own writings consisted of some two hundred poems written in Chinese verse (hanshi), and two poems written in hangul (though her authorship of the hangul poems is contested).

Photo of Yu Kil-chun

8. Yu Kil-chun (1856 - 1914)

With an HPI of 51.64, Yu Kil-chun is the 8th most famous South Korean Writer.  His biography has been translated into 34 different languages.

Yu Gil-chun (Korean: 유길준; November 21, 1856 – September 30, 1914) was a Korean politician. Yu lived during the last few decades of Joseon and the Korean Empire, before the occupation of the peninsula by Japan. As a young man, he studied the Chinese classics. Unusually for the time, he came to embrace foreign ideas and literature. Yu achieved a number of notable firsts: in 1883, he was among the first Koreans to visit the United States. He was also the first Korean to study abroad in Japan and the first in the United States. He also wrote some of the earliest books and translations on Western topics in contemporary Korean, which significantly impacted the reform movement in the Korean Empire. He is also remembered for his contributions to Korean linguistics. Yu was among the earliest Korean independence activists and reformers. He proposed numerous changes to modernize the Korean government, including the establishment of a constitutional monarchy and increased popular participation in government. This brought him into conflict with the Korean monarchy, who forced him to flee to Japan. There, he orchestrated a coup against the Korean monarchy that failed. By the time he was eventually pardoned and allowed to return to the peninsula, it was already firmly under Japanese influence. He fell into a depression and died several years after the formal beginning of the occupation of Korea. Yu is now remembered as a chinilpa or collaborator with Japan. In the aftermath of the assassination of Empress Myeongseong, he was named one of the Eulmi Four Traitors that assisted in her death.

Photo of Han Kang

9. Han Kang (b. 1970)

With an HPI of 50.66, Han Kang is the 9th most famous South Korean Writer.  Her biography has been translated into 33 different languages.

Han Kang (Korean: 한강; born November 27, 1970) is a South Korean writer. She won the Man Booker International Prize for fiction in 2016 for The Vegetarian, a novel about a woman's descent into mental illness and neglect from her family. The novel is also one of the first of her books to be translated into English.

Photo of Yun Seondo

10. Yun Seondo (1587 - 1671)

With an HPI of 49.50, Yun Seondo is the 10th most famous South Korean Writer.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Yun Seondo (Korean: 윤선도; 1587–1671), also spelled as Yoon Sun-Do, was a Korean philosopher, poet, and politician. A Neo-Confucian scholar, he was also known by his art names Gosan and Haeong.

People

Pantheon has 14 people classified as South Korean writers born between 1075 and 1970. Of these 14, 5 (35.71%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living South Korean writers include Ko Un, Han Kang, and Yi Munyeol. The most famous deceased South Korean writers include Sin Saimdang, Kim Bu-sik, and Na Hye-sok. As of April 2024, 4 new South Korean writers have been added to Pantheon including Kim Bu-sik, Park Wan-suh, and Yi Munyeol.

Living South Korean Writers

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Deceased South Korean Writers

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Newly Added South Korean Writers (2024)

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Overlapping Lives

Which Writers were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 4 most globally memorable Writers since 1700.