Kim Yeong-nang
Korean writer (1903 - 1950 )

Kim Yeong-nang (January 16, 1903 – September 29, 1950) was a Korean writer from Gangjin county, South Jeolla province, in present-day South Korea, where he spent most of his life. He participated in the Korean independence movement and as a teenager was jailed for six months in Daegu. Though he was a noted performer of traditional Korean music, he also loved classical Western music and was one of the few of his time who could read and appreciate English language poetry, Keats and Yeats being among his favorites.
When the Japanese oppression was at its height, he alone in Gangjin refused to change his name or offer worship at the Shinto shrine. Many of his earlier poems clearly express opposition to Japanese rule, and after Korea's liberation in 1945 he voiced his disquiet at the political polarisation that was tearing the country apart. When the growing unrest came to threaten the life of his family, he moved to Seoul, where he died as the result of a shrapnel wound to the stomach during the Korean War.
Writing
Under the penname Yeongrang, Kim Yeong-nang was especially active in literature during the 1930s and 1940s. Most of his poems experiment with modernism at the same time as exploring native Korean rhythms and he was well known for writing in the unique Jeolla dialect. Partly this was because Japanese prohibitions led patriotic Koreans to emphasise traditional aesthetics.
His translator, Brother Anthony of Taizé, has commented on the poet's reputation that it is currently growing in Korea.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Kim Yeong-nang” as korean writer (1903 - 1950 ). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as korean writer (1903 - 1950 ). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q624334. VIAF identifies the subject as 67799960. The Library of Congress control number is n82005070. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1903, 1950 and 1945.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kim Yeong-nang” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.