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Staff Reporter
Veteran novelist Park Kyung-ni, renowned for her masterpiece, ``Land'' (Toji), died from lung cancer in a Seoul hospital, Monday. She was 82.
Park, one of the most revered authors in Korea, had been in a coma since she suffered a stroke on April 4.
The right side of her body was paralyzed and she was receiving medical treatment at Asan Medical Center in Seoul, according to the Toji Culture Center.
She was diagnosed with lung cancer last July but refused to be treated. Since then, Park had been staying at the cultural center in Wonju, Gangwon Province, where her home was also located. She had also been suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure before the stroke.
``Land,'' a 16-volume novel took 25 years to write and _ based around 300 characters _depicts the turbulence at the turn of the 20th century when the Korean people were struggling against Japanese imperialism.
The novel has significant literary artistry in style, native folk language and diverse character portrayals, depicting Korea's eventful and sadness-ridden modern history through the love of vast ``Mother Earth.''
Park was born in 1926 in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province. She graduated from Jinju Girls' High School in 1946 and married her husband, Kim Haeng-do, who went missing during the Korean War. Park also lost her baby son right after the war.
Living with her daughter, KimYoung-ju, the head of the Toji Culture Center, she began her writing career with the publication of two short stories, ``Calculations'' (Gyesan, 1955) and ``Black is Black, White is White'' (Heuk heuk baek baek, 1956).
Park won numerous literary prizes, including the Woltan Literature Award, for ``Land.''
She recently published three new poems in the April issue of the literary magazine, ``Hyundae Munhak'' (Contemporary Literature), her first work in eight years.
The cultural center was established in 1999 on the spot of her home in Wonju, where she wrote from 1980 to 1997.
Kim Ji-ha, the renowned poet, is her son-in-law.
Memorial services will be held in the Asan Medical Center for five days.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism posthumously awarded the late Park the Geumgwan Order of Culture Merit, the highest artistic recognition, for her contribution to Korean literature.
chungay@koreatimes.co.kr
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