Into the Light

 Kim Sa-ryang’s (1914~1950) real name is Shi-chang and he was born in 1914 in Pyeongyang, South Pyeongan Province. In 1931, after being expelled for leading a class boycott during his fifth year at Pyongyang Normal High School, he went to Japan and attended Saka High School, and then graduated from Tokyo National University in German literature. When he returned to Korea in 1943, he was sent to China as a reporter in the Japanese Army but he escaped to the coast, working as a reporter in the Korean Volunteer Army under the Chinese National Revolutionary Army and returned to Korea at the time of its independence. After Korea’s independence he was active in North Korea, and as the Korean War broke out, he participated as a war writer in the North Korean People’s Army. He died in 1950 in the Wonju region while retreating north with the North Korean People’s Army from the US Army’s Operation Chromite.

Kim Sa-ryang’s literary activities started after his enrollment at Tokyo National University when he was studying German literature. In 1936, he published his first piece, “Toe Seong Rang” which was written in Japanese in the literary coterie magazine The River Bank (Jaebang). Upon his return to Korea after graduation, the publication of his short story “Into the Light” (Bitsokae) (1939) brought him wide recognition for his creative talent. His main works during the Japanese Colonial Period include writings, such as the short story “Pegasus” (Cheonma) and the full-length novel “Taebaek Mountain Range” (Taebaek Sanmaek). He wrote “Old Horse Ten Thousand li” (Noma Manri) (1945) in China. Despite the fact that most of his works are published in Japanese, they are highly regarded for their elaborate projection of the nation’s reality of the time and the portrayal of the Korean people’s deep-rooted pain that existed due to imperial colonization.