Children's Author Shin Jisik, Who Lit Hope with the 'White Road,' Passes Away

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Jong-gil] Children's literature author Shin Jisik, who has sung hope through novels, passed away on the 12th. He was 90 years old. According to the literary community on the 17th, Shin passed away on the night of the 12th due to an illness. He was buried on the 14th at Yongin Park in Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do. The bereaved family held a quiet funeral due to concerns about the spread of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) and announced the obituary belatedly. "We humbly apologize for not informing you earlier," they said, adding that the family funeral was according to the deceased's will.

Shin was born in Seoul in 1930 and spent his childhood in China. He graduated from Ewha Girls' High School and Ewha Womans University’s Department of Korean Language and Literature and worked as a teacher at Ewha Girls' High School. He debuted in 1948 when his short story "White Road" won the National Girls' Literary Contest while he was a student at Ewha Girls' High School. The story, which contained dreams told with a girlish temperament, was published as a collection of short stories in 1956 and became a bestseller of the time. "When the Persimmons Ripen," published in 1958, also beautifully depicted the pure stories of high school girls and was widely loved.

In the 1960s, Shin overcame weak and narrow feminine sentiments through symbolic techniques imbued with experimental consciousness. Representative works include "The Seagull's House" (1975), which depicts events occurring in the house of a seagull where an orphan girl lives, and "Twelve Months' Stories" (1998), a collection of stories about Korea's four seasons. Shin is also famous for being the first to translate and introduce the classic "Anne of Green Gables" by Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874?1942) to Korea in 1963. It is said that he translated it from a Japanese edition he happened to find in a secondhand bookstore.

Shin received the Socheon Children's Literature Award for "Wind and Golden Bell" in 1968 and the UNESCO Literature Award for "Mr. Hedgehog." In 1979, he won the Presidential Award of the Korea Children's Literature Award for "Twelve Months' Stories." He taught for over 30 years at his alma maters, Ewha Girls' High School and Ewha Womans University, and lived a lifelong bachelor while dedicating himself to children's literature.