Looking for biographies

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Opinion

Michael Breen

Looking for biographies

Posted : 2010-07-01 18:10

Updated : 2010-07-01 18:10

By Michael Breen

The best way to gain insights on Korea, or any other country for that matter, is through the biographies of its famous sons and daughters.

But, and herein lies the reason Korea is not as well known as it should be, a search in English doesn't reveal much. There just aren't many books about notable Koreans on the shelves.

Take former presidents, for instance. Park Chung-hee is without doubt the most influential figure in the modern history of South Korea. But there is not a single biography telling his whole life story in English. No journalist, historian, or Korean studies expert has seen fit to write a book about his life. This is a remarkable gap, considering the case that can be made for Park's significance going way beyond Korea. His development strategy demonstrated in the second half of the 20th century that economic growth was possible for any country in the world and that the key was not economic, social and environmental factors, but the leadership that navigated them.

It's the same story with most other presidents. Even Kim Dae-jung, the most famous post-1987 political leader, received no full biographical treatment after his presidency. The exception to this pattern is Syngman Rhee, the founding president who ruled from 1948 until 1960. One of his American advisors, Robert Tarbell Oliver, wrote about him in 1954 (``Syngman Rhee: The Man Behind the Myth") and a more critical book, ``Korea's Syngman Rhee: An Unauthorized Portrait" by Richard C. Allen, came out in 1960.

As Korea tries to address its overseas reputation, there's a lesson in this empty bookshelf. Something is turning would-be writers away.

Presidents and corporate leaders, it seems, would rather not be written about. Once a politician gets into the Blue House or a chaebol son becomes the boss, he and his staff are entertaining some very high-flown ideas about him and his significance in relation to the rest of peninsular mankind. He's not going to let himself be examined.

The one or two sanctioned biographies give a sense of this self-importance. Take ``Chun Doo-hwan: Man of Destiny," a book which came out in English translation in 1982, the year after Chun had himself been inaugurated for a seven-year term. It's lives-of-the-saints.

All narratives about high-achieving Korean males, it seems, feature the same cast of characters _ a devoted mother, a distant father who is off fighting for a cause, a school bully who is overcome, and a teacher who, with roles reversed, is lectured on moral matters such as love of country by our precocious hero.

The obvious candidates to write insightfully in English about Korean leaders are Asia-based correspondents and writers, and Korea studies experts. But the aides of people who might grant interviews do not consider such people to be senior enough. (Even if they're ghost-writing or doing something authorized, they may instead of face time just be given existing material to rehash in the shortest time possible). Newspaper interviews get done by foreign editors and editors-in-chief, who do not know him or Korea well enough to contemplate a book. Similarly, aides will not grant access to the foreign lecturer in Korean studies while political scientists from Harvard and other lofty places, whose specialty lies outside of Korea, will be granted audiences but not be inclined to write.

The option, then, is for the unauthorized or critical biography. But even these do not seem to exist. I have personal experience here but I am not sure if it is typical. When Kim Dae-jung was elected, I started researching for a book about him. Kim's childhood was especially fascinating because he had tried to hide details such that might turn off Korea's conservative voters. His mother, for example, was a concubine. Also, he had been active in a leftist group, a youthful conviction that took on a new sinfulness after the Korean War. Many young people are drawn to politics when they discover, typically in their late teens or early 20s, an ability to persuade others. Kim's moment came during World War Two when, as a fellow high school student recalled, he gave a speech telling classmates why ``we," i.e., Japan, were going to win. I also found in the records that Kim's mother had shaved two years off his age around this time and speculated that this was so he could avoid conscription into the Japanese army.

In my opinion, none of this was damming. On the contrary, it colored the picture of a fascinating character who had dominated the Korean opposition scene for three decades.

After some months of this, I contacted a publisher. He told me the world was more interested in reading about Kim Jong-il than Kim Dae-jung, and I dropped it. Maybe that is our ultimate problem - North Korea just makes for better reading.

Michael Breen is an author, former foreign correspondent and the chairman of Insight Communications, a public relations consulting company. He can be reached at mike.breen@insightcomms.com.