[3] In China, Hyun and fellow Korean writers Lee Sangwha and Baek Giman published a literary magazine named Geohwa.
He began his career as a fiction writer with “Huisaenghwa”, published in Genesis (Gaebyeok) in November 1920.
[4] In 1940 he returned to writing, serializing Heukchi Sangji- a novel about a Baekje general who fought against Tang invaders.
Beginning with One Lucky Day (Unsu joeun nal), he spurned the confessional mode of first-person narrative and instead wrote in the third person perspective in his attempt to portray life vividly and without subjectivity.
In 1931, he published his final work of fiction, A Ham-Fisted Thief, and moved to writing long historical novels, including Equator (Jeokdo), The Shadowless Pagoda (Muyeong tap), and Heukchi Sangji.