윤동주 尹東柱

Poet of the Japanese colonial period, author of the posthumous poetry collection Sky, Wind, Star and Poem

Life & career

Yun Dong-ju was born in the Korean settlement of Myeongdong in North Gando (Jiandao). He graduated from the literature department of Yonhi College and traveled to Japan, where he studied at Rikkyo University and then Doshisha University.

He left behind poems such as 'Prologue,' 'Counting the Stars at Night,' and 'Self-Portrait,' which express the anguish and unsullied conscience of an intellectual living under colonial rule. He never saw a collection published in his lifetime, but his posthumous anthology Sky, Wind, Stars and Poems appeared in 1948 and has since been beloved by generations of readers.

In 1943 he was arrested by Japanese police on suspicion of anti-Japanese activity and imprisoned at Fukuoka Prison, where he died at 3:36 a.m. on February 16, 1945, at the age of 27. Reports that he had been given mysterious injections while imprisoned have fueled suspicions that he was a victim of human experimentation. His cremated remains were returned to his family and buried in March of that year in Longjing, Jilin Province, marked with a gravestone originally prepared for his grandfather Yun Ha-hyeon. He was posthumously awarded the Order of Merit for National Foundation in 1990.

Grave

Buried in Longjing (Yongjeong), Jilin Province, China.

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