Kim Yeong-nang

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.

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.

At first he tended to be overlooked in political times because he was only briefly in prison (in 1919), and later because he died before the post-Liberation literary influences and cliques formed.