Park Ji-won is a writer for The Korea Times who has been covering a wide range of topics from Korea’s culture to its politics. An avid journalism enthusiast to the core, Ji-won brings a thoughtful and unique perspective to every topic she covers. On weekends, you'll often find her contemplating life’s purpose on a yoga mat — with a cup of quality tea in hand. A native Korean speaker by birth and fluent in English through her work, she went to college in Japan and is learning Chinese and French — hoping to add Polish, Russian and Thai to the mix.
Baek Hee-na wins international children's book award
Writer-illustrator Baek Hee-na poses in this Dec. 20 file photo, 2012. Baek has been named the winner of the 2020 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. She's the first Korean to win the world's largest children's literature prize. Korea Times file
By Park Ji-won
By Park Ji-won
Baek Hee-na, author and renowned picture book artist, has been named the winner of the 2020 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the world's largest children's literature prize. She is the first Korean to win the prestigious award.
The jury of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award announced Tuesday (local time) that Baek was the winner of the annual award and will receive $500,000 (611 million won) in prize money for her unique artwork.
After announcing Baek as the winner, Boel Westin, head of the jury said: “With exquisite feeling for materials, looks and gestures, Baek Hee-na's filmic picture books stage stories about solitude and solidarity. In her evocative miniature worlds, cloud bread and sorbet moons, animals, bath fairies and people converge. Her work is a doorway to the marvelous: sensuous, dizzying and sharp.”
Elena Druker, a member of the Jury, said “The books' characters and their surroundings are all fabricated of paper and cardboard lit and photographed by Hwang Su-kim. The contrast between the flat paper figures and the three-dimensional spaces creates a dynamic magic world that draws viewers irresistibly into the story….. Her techniques connect to a long tradition of the toy books genre to which she has brought development and renewal within her highly original and technical and artistic solutions.”
Druker added “Baek Hee-na is an artist who is renewing the picture book medium through bold and uncompromising development of new techniques and artistic solutions.”
The announcement was made through a livestream video due to the spread of the corona virus. The video also showed Baek's reaction to her winning the award, where she said “Thank you.” She didn't make any further remarks citing difficulties in hearing Boel's voice.
The award was established by the Swedish government in 2002 to honor children's writer Astrid Lindgren. This year, 240 writers from 67 countries were put forward for the award. Multi-award winning authors are among the previous recipients. In 2003, Maurice Sendak from the United States and Christine Nostliger from Austria became the first winners of the award. In 2005, Ryoji Arai from Japan won the award. Bart Moeyaert from Belgium won the prize in 2019.
In an email interview with The Korea Times, Baek said Wednesday that she is honored but still doesn't feel it is real and the prize gave her hope to overcome the difficulties caused by the legal battle with her former publishing company.
Baek said “I didn't know that I had been nominated and announced as the winner because I was too exhausted by the legal fight, which I lost two times, with my former publishers to regain the license and re-publication rights for my book “Cloud Bread.”
Baek is in a legal battle with Hansol Education, her first book publisher, and other companies which used her Cloud Bread characters, to take back her intellectual property rights. But she failed to win the first case and appeal, and is awaiting a decision from the country's top court.
“I was forced to become a bystander and had to witness my characters become products in numerous contents like musicals and animations as I signed a contract to give over my rights.”
The cover page of Baek Hee-na's “Cloud Bread” Korea Times file
Despite her book's international reputation and huge success in terms of sales using its intellectual property ― allegedly raising more than 440 billion won in sales ― she only received 18.5 million won in total from the publisher and wasn't able to take part in the process of developing her creations for use in other art formats such as animation.
Many agencies and publishing companies have been taking the publishing rights and intellectual property rights from authors, which has angered many writers and led some of this year's winners of the prestigious Yi Sang Literary Awards to refuse to accept it.
When asked about the defeats in the legal process, she said she knew it would be a difficult battle but she started the fight to create a better environment for new writers and authors in a weak position.
Stressing that the international award and Swedish people give the huge amount of prize money to motivate the creators and promote the importance of children's book, Baek said “In Korea, basic rights for children and teenagers are being ignored. Further, the rights for writers who create contents for them remain trifling. I think this winning would become a meaningful one if it is able to shed a light on our reality once again.”
Born in Seoul in 1971, Baek has created 13 picture books, including her latest, “I Am a Dog,” (2019) and “The Strange Visitor” (2018), which are illustrated with crafted miniature figures and environments. Baek's first book, “Cloud Bread” (2004) saw a rare level of success for a picture book, winning multiple awards both in South Korea and internationally. Baek studied at Ewha Womans University in Seoul and the California Institute of Arts and worked for a company to create animated films. She later founded her own publishing company “Story Bowl.”