Grand Prize Winner Yesoyeon’s "That Dog and the Revolution"
A Story of an Activist Father and a Feminist Daughter
"Freshly Depicting Conflict and Opposition with Humor," Judges Comment
Yesoyeon: "Pleasure Is the Crack in Everyday Life"
Dasan Books Takes Over the Yi Sang Literary Award
"Judged Solely on Artistic Merit... Breaking the Convention of Excluding Previously Published Works"
The grand prize of the 48th Yi Sang Literary Award was awarded to writer Yesoyeon’s work, "That Dog and the Revolution." The novel depicts a scene where the activist generation of the 1980s and the feminist youth generation of the 2020s join forces to plan a cheerful funeral together.
At the 48th Yi Sang Literary Award press conference, grand prize winner writer Yesoyeon is delivering her acceptance speech. Provided by Dasan Books
The novel contains some elements of Yesoyeon’s personal history. It tells a story about the pain and love related to her late father. At a press conference announcing the Yi Sang Literary Award grand prize held on the 17th at a cafe in Jung-gu, Seoul, Yesoyeon explained, “My father became ill in October two years ago, so I quit my job to take care of him, but he eventually passed away last October. I incorporated the experiences I had while caring for him into the novel.”
The work’s distinctive feature is its humor. As the father and daughter plan the funeral of the father, ‘Taesu,’ together, the potentially heavy atmosphere is uniquely colored with witty expressions. Eun Heekyung, a judge who participated in the selection, said, “It was refreshing how the novel sharply breaks through the conflict and opposition between the father, who was an activist in the 1980s, and his feminist daughter through humor. I felt a strong momentum in how it critically yet humorously breaks through the customs and false rituals of funerals.” She added, “Unlike previous works that dealt with a kind of ‘killing the father,’ this work does not deny or break but embraces and transcends, which I think offers comfort to readers.”
At the Yi Sang Literary Award press conference, judge writer Eun Hee-kyung is delivering the judging comments. Photo by Dasan Books
Yesoyeon said, “Even amid everyday sadness, there are many points of joy, but usually sadness is expressed deeply while joy is expressed briefly. I think small pleasures, like a sock with a hole at a funeral hall, provide cracks in everyday life.”
This year, Dasan Books took over the Yi Sang Literary Award and introduced various changes for the first time. While maintaining the principle of selecting the best literary work of the year, they eliminated unnecessary conventions. Previously, works that had been implicitly published as books during the literary award judging process were excluded from consideration, but this time, Dasan Books explained that the judgment was made solely based on ‘artistic merit.’
Judge Eun Heekyung said, “We selected the most outstanding work of this year including those already published as books and previous winners of other literary awards. Although this year’s winning work was already published as a standalone book, it was unanimously chosen as the grand prize winner by the judges. I think this also has significance as a new start for the Yi Sang Literary Award.”
A dialogue between the winning author and the judges was newly included in the award collection. Instead of critiques by critics, which the general public might find somewhat difficult, interviews with the judges and the winning author were included to enhance understanding of the work and the author.
The Yi Sang Literary Award, recognized for its long history and prestige, has selected the most outstanding work among all short and medium-length stories published each year since its establishment in 1977. The operating company changed from the previous Munhak Sasang to Dasan Books last year, and the award was newly launched this year. The grand prize money is 50 million won, the largest amount among domestic literary awards.
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