He graduated from Daegu Agricultural High School and from the creative writing program at Seorabol College of Art (now merged with Chung-Ang University), which he attended against the wishes of his father.

[2] It is, however, as the writer of The Innkeeper, a monumental saga in ten volumes that details the lives of itinerant merchants at the close of the nineteenth century, that Kim Joo-young is best known.

Serialized from June 1979 to February 1983 in Seoul Shinmun, The Innkeeper marked a departure from preceding Korean historical novels in its view of history from the vantage point of the masses.

[3] With the success of The Innkeeper, Kim Joo-young continued writing historical fiction, producing multi-volume novels The Wanderers (화적 禾尺 Hwacheok, 1991) and Righteous Band of Brigands (활빈도 活貧徒 Hwalbindo, 1987).

He also turned retrospectively to the space of his childhood — a small country village of Gyeongsangbuk-do where he grew up poor and fatherless — in such works as The Roar of Thunder (Cheondung sori, 1986) and Fishermen Don’t Break Reeds (Gogijabineun galdaereul kkeokji anneunda, 1988[4] Kim Juyeong received the 1982 Novelists’ Award for Travelogue to the Oechon Market (외촌장外村場 기행 Oechonjang gihaeng, 1984) and the 1984 Yoo Juhyeon Literary Award for The Innkeeper.