Park Cheong-ho () (born 1966) is a South Korean writer. In 1990, he became known as a “new generation author” and his works received attention for their freedom of form and distinct prose. Though he began his career writing both poetry and prose, he gradually came to focus solely on novels. The unique stylistic aspects of his writing include devices such as the enumeration of imagery, wordplay, and abrupt switches between scenes. In terms of subject matter and themes, he has constructed a literary world imbued with his individuality through the depiction of apathy and disinterest in public order, authority, and traditions, all while in search of a new set of moral and ethical values.
Life
Park Cheong-ho was born in 1966. In college, he studied creative writing with the continuous dream of becoming a writer and displayed an interest in diverse literary genres such as poetry, plays, and novels. Perhaps it is for this reason that his works are characterized by the transgression of conventional literary genres. He made his debut with a poetry collection in 1989 and a play in 1992. With the publication of his novel Geuga nareul salhaehada (그가 나를 살해하다 That Which Kills Me) in 1995, he officially started his career in writing novels as well.
Along with other writers such as Park Seongwon, Baek Minsuk, Song Gyeonga, and Bae Suah, he became part of the so-called “New Generation Authors,” known for inaugurating a new sensibility and formation of literature during the 1990s. Their works were characterized by a cheerful and buoyant sensibility, an urbanist imagination, and an ethical numbness regarding sex and sexuality. While Park Cheong-ho’s novels also resonate with these characteristics, they differentiated themselves through a sense of identity and self-consciousness. That is, Park’s works display a philosophical orientation in which, even as they deal with a chaotic and melancholy reality, possess a kind of self-introspection. Just as the author himself stated that “I will write for the new generation that has suffered in this country," he has maintained the consciousness of a “new generation author” in constructing his literary works.
Moreover, his novels frequently portray the appearance of a father in a decisive moment. This emphasizes the extent to which Park’s own father, a Christian pastor, influenced him. He claimed that his father was not the ordinary father of everyday life, but nearly always appeared as a pastor that stood on the border between God and human. Personally unable to accept such a father, Park has stated that it was only after his father passed away that he became aware of how his father made his own existence possible, and that his father had guided him towards God. In this manner, it is apparent that his father immensely influenced his mentality.
Writing
Early works
Park Cheong-ho’s early novels betray traditional moral values and methods of private ownership, tearing down conventional ways of writing. His first works, such as the 1996 short story collection Dan hanpyeonui yeonaesoseol (단 한편의 연애소설Only One Romance Novel) and the 1995 novel Geuga nareul salhaehada, deal with doubts regarding basic moral order. For instance, he portrays subject matters such as accidental sojourns, apathetic and unmotivated sex and romance, unnecessary murders, adultery, idleness, and psychiatric hospitals and in this manner, the majority of his novels explore the so-called “abnormal” and deviance. On the formal level, his works are written in a very free and experimental style. Through diverse methods such as following a stream of transient emotions as they arise, switching between first and third person to show the intermingling of time, and using devices such as mise-en-abyme in which another story is contained within his own, he materializes a distinct narrative form.
Later works
Park’s works after 2000 extend the tendencies seen in his earlier writings. His 2002 short story collection, Jilbyeonggwa sarang (질병과 사랑 Sickness and Love), portrays a protagonist undergoing the ennui and pain of everyday life in order to render the desire of modern people to escape from everyday life. His experiments in narrative form also continue with devices such as the intermingling of reality and illusion and the exclusion of scenic descriptions. In addition, the short stories “Sangsangdeul” (상상들 Imaginations), “Sageondeul” (사건들 Incidents), and “Haengwideul” (행위들 Actions) included in the 2006 collection Sarangui susahak (사랑의 수사학 The Rhetoric of Love) can each be considered as independent and stand-alone novels in their own right, but nevertheless take the form of an omnibus in which each short story is somehow linked.