[1] Jeon Sang-guk was born on March 24, 1940, in Kōgen-dō (Gangwon Province), Korea, Empire of Japan.
[3] Jeon Sang-guk drew on his personal experiences in the Korean War and the ensuing division of the country to reconfirm the tragic consequences of these events.
The tragedy, therefore, is not only found in the rape and its by-product, the handicapped child, but also in consequence of the attempt to escape the traumatic memories of it.
In the 1980s, Jeon Sang Guk, who worked for a long time as a schoolteacher, expanded the scope of his literary topic to include problems in education.
His stories "The Tears of an Idol" (Usangui nunmul), "The Squealing of Piglets" (Doeji saekkideurui ureum) and "The Eye of the Darkness" (Eumjiui nun) take the confined space of the school as a microcosmic setting, and explore the problematic relationships between teachers and students, as well as among the students themselves as they correlate to the similar issues in society at large.