현진건 玄鎭健
Realist novelist, author of The Fortunate Day; pen name Bingheo
| Life | 1900 ~ 1943 |
| Era | 일제강점기 |
| Clan | 연주 현씨 |
Life & career
Hyeon Jin-geon (1900-1943), born in Daegu, was a novelist and journalist of the Yeonju Hyeon clan, pen name Bingheo. Korean Wikipedia describes his family as a middle-class line producing many interpreters. His brothers included Hyeon Jeong-geon, an independence activist.
After studying in Japan and Shanghai he worked at Chosun Ilbo and then Dong-A Ilbo, becoming head of the social and later culture desks. His stories include Bincheo, A Lucky Day and Madam B and the Love Letters, and the novels Muyeongtap and Jeokdo, making him a pioneer of realism.
He was jailed for a year after the Rising Sun emblem was erased from a photograph of marathon winner Son Gi-jeong in 1936. He died in 1943 and was posthumously awarded the Order of Merit for National Foundation, Independence Medal, in 2005.
A Youngest Son of an Interpreter Family
He was fourth son of a family with many interpreters and was adopted by a paternal cousin of his father. Two daughters died young; one survived. His brother Hyeon Jeong-geon was an independence activist in Shanghai.
Fiction and the Press
He rose in the early 1920s with Bincheo and A Society That Urges Drinking; A Lucky Day depicts a rickshaw puller’s day. His serial Heukchi Sangji was halted after 58 installments by censorship, and the collection Joseon-ui Eolgul was banned.
The Rising Sun Erasure
He was prosecuted and served a year after the 1936 incident, left Dong-A Ilbo on release, and in 1940 began a serial in a pro-Japanese magazine that he abandoned unfinished.
Honors
He was awarded a presidential citation in March 2005 and the Independence Medal on 15 August 2005; the Hyeon Jin-geon Literature Prize was established in 2009.
Grave
Cremated by his will and buried in Siheung, the grave was lost to development and the ashes are said to have been scattered in the Han River. A marker stands at his house site in Buam-dong.
Descendants
His surviving daughter Hyeon Hwa-su married the eldest son of novelist Bak Jong-hwa.