Kim Chi-won

Kim Chi-won (Hangul: 김지원; November 10, 1943 – January 30, 2013) is a South Korean writer.

Life

Kim Chi-won was raised in a literary family. Born in 1943 in the Gyeonggi Province, her mother is Ch'oe Chong-hui, who was one of the most popular female Korean writers in the twentieth century and Kim's sister, Kim Ch'ae-won is also a writer ^[1] In 1965, Kim Chi-won graduated from Ehwa University and published her first story in 1974. Since the 1970s Kim has lived in New York.^[1]

Work

Kim writes primarily about women in failed relationships with husbands (A Certain Beginning in 1974 and Lullaby in 1979).^[1] In A Certain Beginning a woman is hopelessly trapped between social expectations of money and relationships. Set in the United States, protagonist Yun-ja agrees to marry Chong-il so that he can get a green card. Left by her first husband and in middle age, Yun-ja hopes that the wedding will actually work out, both because it would be a welcome change and because she yearns for a better apartment. While both Yun-ja and Chong-il seem open to this possibility at first, Chong-il comes to see his arrangement as the purchase of an aging prostitute. Women are portrayed as having only their bodies as assets and although Yun-ja makes a brave statement of independence at the end of the book, it seems an empty statement given her feelings of vulnerability related to her previous marriage, age, and physical condition.^[2]

Kim’s story Almaden is similar. A Korean woman in New York is unhappy with her marriage and life. At the liquor store in which she and her husband work, a regular client becomes the focus of her dreams of relationship. She becomes increasingly unhappy with her real life, but when her fantasy lover disappears, she is left back in her initial position, uselessly hoping that some other man will come to rescue her from her plight.^[3]

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