Ri Ki-yong
Korean writer (1896–1984)
Ri Ki-yong (Korean: 리기영; May 6, 1896 – August 9, 1984) or Lee Gi-yeong was a Korean novelist.
Life
Ri Ki-yong was born in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, Joseon. He wrote under the name Minchon. Ri attended the Seiisku School of English in Tokyo, Japan, He worked as a member of KAPF in 1925 and was the organizer of the Choson Proletarian Writers' Federation in Seoul as well as the leader of the North Choson Federation of Literature and Arts. 1926, he served as an editor of Light of Joseon (Joseon jigwang), an organ of the Korean Communist Party and a journal promoting proletarian literature. Ri Ki-yong spent more than two years in jail.
After liberation from Japanese colonial rule, Ri moved to North Korea where he was key in creating the orthodox position on literature in North Korea, serving for several years in a key position in North Korean Federation of Literature and Arts. He is reported to have died in August 1988.
Work
The Korea Literature Translation Institute summarizes his contributions to literature:
One of the leading writers to emerge from the proletarian literature camp, Ri Ki-yong explored miserable lives of peasants exploited by their landlords and oppressed by colonial capitalism. Flood (Hongsu) and Rat Fire (Seohwa) represent quintessential “peasant literature” and describe the reality of rural hardships through the proletarian perspective.
“Ri Ki-yong” enters the record as korean writer (1896–1984). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ki-yong, Korean and writer can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Ri Ki-yong” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Ki-yong, Korean and writer provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q485218. VIAF identifies the subject as 37083780. The Library of Congress control number is n83026939. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1896, 1984, 1925 and 1926.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ri Ki-yong” 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.