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KANG Sok-kyong - Genre : Novels+Essays - Award :   Originally a student of fine arts, KANG Sok-kyong (1951~) stumbled into a literary career quite accidentally when she entered a creative writing contest to raise tuition for graduate studies in sculpture and art criticism. Her talent was unmistakable from the beginning, and for more than thirty years since her debut, she has remained a respected writer. KANG has focused on the search for the self in her fiction. Having faced a difficult choice between fine art and writing, KANG recognizes that life is filled with diverging roads and attendant dilemmas, which allow us a glimpse into our true selves. KANG’s fiction can be divided into two categories. In the first, she examines the search for the true self from the perspective of an artist, whose quests are unadulterated by any social or political agenda. In the second category, KANG focuses on ordinary individuals and shows the ways in which social structure and conventions can damage human dignity. Many of her works concern the inhumanity she finds within the Korean society. It can be said that Kang seeks nothing less than spiritual redemption through her works. Literature, for Kang, is a tool for assuaging wounded souls, by means of which one can take a step closer to the true essence of human life. Her trip to India in 1992 allowed her a powerful experience of the infinite universe, as a result of which she realized that all obsessions are primitive in nature. Violence is the source of all oppressions, the author has once stated, and function of literature is to strip away the falsities and superfluous concerns beclouding the true essence of human life, thereby contributing to the expansion of human freedom. KANG is the recipient of 1985 'Today’s Writer Award and Nogwon Literature Prize'. Major works: short story collection (Supsok-ui Bang, 1985) novels (Gakkaun Goljjagi, 1989), (Sesang-ui Byeol-eun da Lha sa-e Tteunda, 1997), essays (India Gihaeng, 1990), (Neung-euro Ganeun Gil, 2000) children’s book (India-ro Gan Ttotto, 1994)