Translator and essayist who rendered works such as Life in Full and Demian into Korean
| Life | 1934 ~ 1965 |
| Era | 현대 |
| Clan | 담양 전씨 |
Jeon Hye-rin (1934-1965) was a translator of German literature and an essayist, classed as Damyang Jeon in Wikipedia's categories. Born in Suncheon, South Pyongan, she was the daughter of the jurist Jeon Bong-deok. After Gyeonggi Girls' schools she entered Seoul National University's law department in 1952 but, drawn to German literature, changed her major in 1955 and later studied German literature at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich.
She married in 1956, had a daughter in 1959 and divorced in 1964. Returning in 1959, she lectured at Seoul National, Sungkyunkwan and Ewha universities while steadily publishing essays, and became an assistant professor at Sungkyunkwan in 1964. From her years in Germany she translated about ten works, including Luise Rinser's Life in Full, Hermann Hesse's Demian, Heinrich Boll's And Never Said a Word and Mirok Li's The Yalu Flows.
She died in January 1965 at thirty-one, and essay collections gathering her writings, Geurigo amu malto hajianatda (1966) and I modeun goeroumeul tto dasi (1968), were widely read by young people until the late 1970s. Her translations were loved for an accurate, fluent style, and her pursuit of purity and spiritual freedom is seen as a new image of women for her time.
Wikipedia says her translations won many readers with an accurate and fluent style, and that her posthumous essay collection was a bestseller among young people until the late 1970s. The core of her essays is summarized as the claim that one should not settle for ordinary routine but move toward an ideal.
Her Wikipedia article does not state the seat; the category "Damyang Jeon" is followed here. Her father Jeon Bong-deok is also described as Damyang Jeon on Namuwiki. Please confirm family details in the clan genealogy.