Hong Hee-kyung, president of the Yonsei University Alumni Association of the Americas, announced Dr. Choi Yearn-hong as the Yonseian of the Year 2017, for his pilgrimage to commemorate the centennial of poet and fellow Yonsei alumni, Yoon Dong-ju’s birth, earlier this year.
Choi has long celebrated Yoon’s life and literature through the establishment and foundation of the Yoon Dong-ju Group in the Washington Area, the only such organization outside Korea over the past twenty years, and most recently highlighted Yoon at the Korean Poets and Writers Group overseas literary symposium at Yanji, September 1, 2017.
He has translated and published Yoon’s major poems, including “Star-counting Night,”“Self-Portrait,”“Easily Written Poem” and “Prelude,” into English. His journey to remember the poet began at Yoon’s birthplace in Myungdong-chon, and moved on to his elementary and middle schools in Yongjung, Manchuria, his colleges in Japan _ Rikkyo and Toshisha universities, and finally the prison at Fukuoka, Japan, where he was killed in February 1945 at the age of 27.
Choi is one of the senior Korean poets who made his literary debut while studying at Yonsei University in 1963, and received the Yoon Dong-ju Literary Awards in 2016 for his most recent poetry book, “Incan Woman.”
His lengthy article on his pilgrimage was published in Sept. 23 and 24 issues of The Korea Times.
ejbae@ktimes.com