Park Kyung-ni - Biography

Biography

Park Kyung-ni was born as the first daughter to a middle-class family in 1926 in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province. Her birth name was Park Geum-i (박금이). Her father, Park Su-yeong (박수영) married her mother at his age of fourteen, who was older than he was by 4 years. The relationship between her parents did not get on well, which deeply affected her life. Her misery started when her father left her mother right away after she was born. Later, she said that she had both sympathy and contempt toward her mother, but hatred against her father. Therefore, she was isolated in the extremely conflicting feelings and befriended books in her imaginative world.

Park married Kim Haeng-do (김행도), a clerk of the Office of Monopoly (전매부) in 1946 one year after her graduation from Jinju Girls' High school (진주고등여학교). However, her suffering did not end with her marriage. Instead, it got worse when her husband was accused of being a communist and went missing during the Korean War and eventually died in Seodaemun Prison. Not only that, she lost her 3 years-old baby son in the same year. Park became a widow with her daughter and mother for whom she had to financially support. Park began her career as a professional writer in 1955 after a recommendation by a novelist and poet, Kim Dong-ri (김동리 1913 ~ 1995). Park underwent breast cancer in 1960s and had to raise her grandson, Wonbo after her son-in-law and a poet, Kim Chi-Ha (김지하) was arrested for the accusation of being a communist in 1970s just like her husband. She had even suffered from lung cancer herself until she died.