All prizes South Korea
이상문학상
South Korea · Since 1977 · For books in Korean
Awarded once a year by the publisher Munhak Sasang to the best short story or novella in Korean published the year before. The jury's other picks (excellence prizes, called recommended works in the early 2000s) appear with the winner in an annual anthology and are listed here as the shortlist. There was no award in 2020, after writers refused it in protest, and the 2026 prize covered stories published up to September 2025.
The publisher Munhak Sasang founded the prize in 1977 in memory of the writer Yi Sang, who died young. It considers novellas and short stories that appeared in literary and other magazines during the previous year. The first winner was Kim Seung-ok. Later winners include Yi Mun-yol in 1987 and Han Kang in 2005, for Mongolian Mark, published in English as part of The Vegetarian. In 2020 Kim Keum-hee, Choi Eun-young and Lee Ki-ho turned down their prizes over the contract: the grand prize winner had to transfer the story's copyright to the publisher for three years and could not make it the title story of their own collection. A past winner, Yun I-hyeong, announced she would stop writing in protest. The publisher apologised and dropped the clause. From 2021 it made its judges and their evaluations public and raised the grand prize from 35 million to 50 million won.
Yi Sang 2026 · Excellence prize
Uriui jeokdeuri saneul oreul ttae
Title translated by AI:“When Our Enemies Climb the Mountain”
Short story
AI-generated summary:Sent on a first field visit to an observatory in the mountains, Noa, a newcomer at a township office, meets the group living there among derelict buildings, people who sing and wait for an enemy, and gives them a mother's name instead of Noa's own.
Yi Sang 2026 · Excellence prize
Silpaedam keuru
Title translated by AI:“The Failure Stories Crew”
Jung Yi-hyun · 53 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:The youngest member of a club whose members meet to confess their failures, a lawyer in the mid-thirties sets out to win over the settled middle-aged professionals around the table with a failure story impressive enough to earn their respect.
Yi Sang 2026 · Excellence prize
Gwanjongdeul
Title translated by AI:“Attention Seekers”
Kim Hye-jin · 42 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Jeong-hae and Yeong-gi, a married couple who cannot stop speaking up about other people's misconduct, are eyed as troublemakers in their neighbourhood, until one freezing day they notice small children left alone outdoors and decide to call the police.
Yi Sang 2026 · Excellence prize
Gyeourui yulli
Title translated by AI:“The Ethics of Winter”
Short story
Yi Sang 2026 · Excellence prize
Daebuho
Title translated by AI:“Grand Millionaire”
Short story
AI-generated summary:A young woman who has lost her father to an accident and her brother to an industrial one lives alone with her mother, who now spends her days on political YouTube channels and has started joining street protests.
Yi Sang 2025 · Excellence prize
Seulpeun maeum inneun saram
Title translated by AI:“Someone with a Sad Heart”
Short story
AI-generated summary:Walking around the neighbourhood, Gi-eun keeps coming across graffiti that reads 'Kim Byeong-cheol, listen', and every new discovery makes Gi-eun want to tell Jun-young.
Yi Sang 2025 · Excellence prize
Heorikein naiteu
Title translated by AI:“Hurricane Night”
Short story
AI-generated summary:As a hurricane strikes New York, an outsider living in Manhattan shelters for the night in the grand house of Peter, whose Rolex he once stole out of envy.
Yi Sang 2025 · Excellence prize
Riteul peuraideu
Title translated by AI:“Little Pride”
Short story
AI-generated summary:Tommy, a trans man, is claimed as a comrade-in-arms by Austin, who has had his limbs surgically lengthened to get over his shame at being short.
Yi Sang 2024 · Excellence prize
Tu obeu eoseu
Title translated by AI:“Two of Us”
Bak Solmay · 38 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Aeri, who used to dance on a skateboard, is Gangju's partner in a movement workshop in a building at Jungbu Market; walking together afterwards past the empty site of a former US Army engineer base, she begins telling Gangju about Alex.
Yi Sang 2024 · Excellence prize
Hangarireul meorie sseun yeoin
Title translated by AI:“The Woman with a Jar on Her Head”
Short story
Yi Sang 2024 · Excellence prize
Pakseu atomika
Title translated by AI:“Pax Atomica”
Short story
AI-generated summary:A man driven by compulsions, who must fix and control everything, sets out to find a spell against the bomb: the one lodged in his own head and the one that has kept the world in an uneasy peace since 1945.
Yi Sang 2024 · Excellence prize
Jeongyosaengui sarang
Title translated by AI:“The Love of the Whole School”
Park Min-jung · 38 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Minji, a child actor of the 1990s who quit at fifteen when a rival overtook her, meets that rival again as an adult just as the film they made together as girls is about to be shown again.
Yi Sang 2024 · Excellence prize
Ganbyeongin
Title translated by AI:“The Caregiver”
Short story
AI-generated summary:Years after her mother's long fight with breast cancer, young Najin has a preventive mastectomy, and her father hires a caregiver, Mihyeong, whom Najin suspects of being her future stepmother.
Yi Sang 2023 · Excellence prize
Geugot
Title translated by AI:“That Place”
Choi Eun-mi · 44 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Haunted by being trapped by a summer flood long ago, someone who keeps a survival bag packed is shut inside a sports centre turned heatwave shelter, as a typhoon nears and a bear escapes nearby.
Yi Sang 2023 · Excellence prize
Sesang modeun bada
Title translated by AI:“All the Seas of the World”
Short story · Migration
AI-generated summary:At a K-pop concert, a fourth-generation Korean from Japan passing as Japanese chats with a sixteen-year-old fan from the provinces, then goes home before the evening ends in disaster.
Yi Sang 2023 · Excellence prize
Keurokap
Lee Jang-wook · 54 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Told in the second person, the story follows someone who keeps replaying an old UFC fight between two faded champions and nurses a grudge against the upstairs neighbour, a former rival at work, until a strange dripping sound sends them upstairs.
Yi Sang 2023 · Excellence prize
Na, na, madeullen
Title translated by AI:“Me, Me, Madeleine”
Park Seolyeon · 33 when first published
Short story · Speculative, Love
AI-generated summary:The narrator wakes to find another self lying in bed, and as the selves multiply, one of them must decide whether to testify for Madeleine against the novelist who harassed her.
Yi Sang 2023 · Excellence prize
Naega ajik jogeum nama isseul ttae
Title translated by AI:“While a Little of Me Is Still Left”
Short story · Family, Migration
AI-generated summary:Hye-sun, content with her life as a professor's wife, cannot understand the daughter's urge to write a play about Koreans adopted abroad, until an article about an adoptee stirs something she remembers.
Yi Sang 2022 · Excellence prize
Aju hwanhan naldeul
Title translated by AI:“Very Bright Days”
Baek Sou-linne · 39 when first published
Short story · Family
AI-generated summary:A widow who has lived by a rigid routine since closing her shop is left to mind her son-in-law's young parrot, and learns from a vet that it will die without attention.
Yi Sang 2022 · Excellence prize
Gobyeol
Title translated by AI:“Farewell”
Choi Eun-mi · 43 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:At her mother-in-law's wake, a woman who gave up her job at a cultural foundation to marry her boss watches the foundation's staff jockey for power, and remembers the USB stick that holds her working life.
Yi Sang 2022 · Excellence prize
Bokdo
Title translated by AI:“The Corridor”
Kang Hwagil · 35 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A couple move into a flat in a redevelopment zone whose building does not exist on any map app, and when a parcel is delivered to the neighbouring block, one of them goes to fetch it.
Yi Sang 2022 · Excellence prize
Jamsujonggwa dok
Title translated by AI:“The Diving Bell and the Poison”
Lee Jang-wook · 53 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Gong, a surgeon tending a comatose patient who set a fire and then jumped while ablaze, cannot look at him without thinking of Hyun-woo, the photographer she lived with for five years.
Yi Sang 2022 · Excellence prize
Byeokgwa seoneul neomneun peullou
Title translated by AI:“A Flow over Walls and Lines”
Short story
AI-generated summary:Kept awake by hip-hop booming through the wall night after night, a young office worker who never speaks up at work remembers the high-school friend they once shared hip-hop with.
Yi Sang 2022 · Excellence prize
Mideumui doyak
Title translated by AI:“A Leap of Faith”
Yeom Seung-suk · 39 when first published
Short story · Family
AI-generated summary:Cheol and Yeong, who waited ten years for a deposit before having their child, face a demand for more rent in the middle of the pandemic, while Yeong doses the family with ever more supplements.
Yi Sang 2021 · Excellence prize
Abeojiga doeeojuo
Title translated by AI:“Be My Father”
Chun Woon-young · 49 when first published
Short story · Family
AI-generated summary:A daughter who sees her mother's life as one long sacrifice to a violent, abusive father learns that her mother tells that life very differently.
Yi Sang 2021 · Excellence prize
Yasimhan yeongeukban
Title translated by AI:“The Late-Night Drama Club”
Short story · Family, Migration
AI-generated summary:Someone who thinks in film dissolves sets out to find the father they believe abandoned them, and in Utoro, a Korean neighbourhood in Japan, sees father, self and world anew.
Yi Sang 2021 · Excellence prize
Naui rumaniaeo sueop
Title translated by AI:“My Romanian Lessons”
Jang Eun-jin · 44 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:The narrator, who studied Romanian, remembers a university autumn spent with Eun-gyeong, a lonely classmate who read aloud the narrator's all-night translations of an unknown Romanian novelist.
Yi Sang 2021 · Excellence prize
97-ui segye
Title translated by AI:“The World of 97”
Park Hyoung-su · 48 when first published
Short story · Speculative, Family
AI-generated summary:A father desperate to save his daughter is caught in a loop that resets every ninety-seven seconds.
Yi Sang 2021 · Excellence prize
Beullaekhol
Title translated by AI:“Black Hole”
Short story
AI-generated summary:Their mother is in prison for putting pesticide in the food served to neighbours at a local sports day, and her three grown children meet to sell the family house.
Yi Sang 2019 · Excellence prize
Hyeonsu-dong ppangjip samgukji
Title translated by AI:“The Three Kingdoms of the Hyeonsu-dong Bakeries”
Chang Kang-myoung · 43 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:In the neighbourhood of Hyeonsu-dong, the owners and staff of franchise and independent bakeries struggle with each other, with their customers and with an overbearing head office.
Yi Sang 2019 · Excellence prize
Il nyeon
Title translated by AI:“One Year”
Choi Eunyoung · 34 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:In a time when jobs are scarce, meeting Da-hui, a young woman who joined the narrator's company as an intern and then left, makes the narrator look back on a life spent inside the firm.
Yi Sang 2019 · Excellence prize
Ureobonda
Title translated by AI:“Trying to Cry”
Jang Eun-jin · 42 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Someone whose life has always been bound up with refrigerators listens to a fridge's intermittent crying, and cries too.
Yi Sang 2019 · Excellence prize
Sarajineun geotdeul
Title translated by AI:“Things That Disappear”
Jung Yong-jun · 37 when first published
Short story · Family
AI-generated summary:After their three-year-old daughter is killed in a road accident, a man and his wife are each consumed by guilt, and his mother insists that the blame is hers.
Yi Sang 2019 · Excellence prize
Haebyeonui myoji
Title translated by AI:“The Graveyard by the Sea”
Kim Hee-seon · 46 when first published
Short story · Speculative
AI-generated summary:A small boat drifts into Korea's East Sea carrying a fisherman lost from an ocean trawler and a youth who fled a Guatemalan rubbish dump, both claiming that something unreal carried them there.
Yi Sang 2018 · Excellence prize
Nae majimak gongnaengsik poreuswe
Title translated by AI:“My Last Air-Cooled Porsche”
Short story
AI-generated summary:A man whose father died driving his fruit truck too fast, and whose free-spirited friend died in a car crash, still cannot give up his love for a 1989 air-cooled Porsche.
Yi Sang 2018 · Excellence prize
Pajonghaneun bam
Title translated by AI:“Night of Sowing”
Cho Haejin · 41 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A media artist preparing a film on a factory shut down after its workers were killed by mercury, back when the country first industrialised, comes to understand what remembering the dead requires.
Yi Sang 2018 · Excellence prize
Han aiege on maeuri
Title translated by AI:“A Whole Village for One Child”
Gu Byeong-mo · 41 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:When her husband, a teacher, is transferred to a country school, the pregnant Jeong-ju becomes the target of the villagers' prejudices and uninvited meddling.
Yi Sang 2018 · Excellence prize
Saeui siseon
Title translated by AI:“The Gaze of a Bird”
Jeong Chan · 64 when first published
Short story · Politics
AI-generated summary:Through camera angles and a single still photograph, the story returns to the Yongsan tragedy and asks how such an event can be seen and told.
Yi Sang 2018 · Excellence prize
Jonjaeui jeungmyeong
Title translated by AI:“Proof of Existence”
Jeong Ji-a · 52 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:An amnesiac who loves coffee for the way it calls a person back to themselves tries to work out who they are and where they came from.
Yi Sang 2017 · Excellence prize
Nun sogui saram
Title translated by AI:“The Person in the Snow”
Cho Haejin · 40 when first published
Short story · War
AI-generated summary:When the subject of their oral history project dies, the two people who recorded the dead person's memories of the war travel together to pay their respects.
Yi Sang 2017 · Excellence prize
Kodeu beonho 1021
Title translated by AI:“Code Number 1021”
Short story
AI-generated summary:A man who once worked as a torturer in the cellars on Namsan writes out his statement shortly before he takes his own life, and comes to see the life he led as nothing but an illusion.
Yi Sang 2017 · Excellence prize
Seumail
Title translated by AI:“Smile”
Kim Jung-hyuk · 45 when first published
Short story · Crime
AI-generated summary:Dave Han, a drug mule carrying narcotics inside his body on a passenger flight, talks with the American in the next seat while every incident on board feeds his fear.
Yi Sang 2017 · Excellence prize
Nareul hyeomohage doel Bak Chang-su-ege
Title translated by AI:“To Park Chang-su, Who Will Come to Despise Me”
Short story · Crime
AI-generated summary:Held as a suspect in her husband's murder, Kim Suk-hui writes out for the detective the story of her life and of the affair that led to the killing.
Yi Sang 2017 · Excellence prize
Burumabeure Pyeongyangi itdamyeon
Title translated by AI:“If There Were Pyongyang on the Blue Marble Board”
Yun Ko-eun · 36 when first published
Short story · Satire, Politics
AI-generated summary:In a South Korea preparing for unification, buyers sign up for flats in North Korean apartment blocks that do not yet exist, touring show homes in Yongin and on the banks of the Han.
Yi Sang 2016 · Excellence prize
Nugudo gabon jeok eomneun
Title translated by AI:“Where No One Has Gone”
Hwang Jungeun · 39 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A couple who have lost a child travel to Warsaw just as the financial crisis breaks at home, and in the strange city discover how deep their wound still runs.
Yi Sang 2016 · Excellence prize
Deungbul
Title translated by AI:“Lamplight”
Jeong Chan · 62 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2016 · Excellence prize
Aengduui sigan
Title translated by AI:“The Time of Cherries”
Kim Tak-hwan · 47 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2016 · Excellence prize
Binjip
Title translated by AI:“The Empty House”
Kim Yi-seol · 40 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2016 · Excellence prize
Iusui seonhan saram
Title translated by AI:“The Good Person Next Door”
Yun I-hyeong · 39 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A man finds out that the person who once saved his child's life is autistic, a discovery that unsettles the comfortable life he has settled into.
Yi Sang 2015 · Excellence prize
Ilgop myeongui dongmyeongiindeulgwa gakjaui sungandeul
Title translated by AI:“Seven Namesakes and Their Own Moments”
Han Yujoo · 32 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2015 · Excellence prize
Sopung
Title translated by AI:“The Picnic”
Jeon Sungtae · 45 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:On a family outing, a treasure hunt with the children plays out against the fading life of an old person, as dementia quietly finds its way into a happy family scene.
Yi Sang 2015 · Excellence prize
Gidoe gakkaun
Title translated by AI:“Close to a Prayer”
Jo Kyung-ran · 45 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2015 · Excellence prize
Keuriseumaseu kaereol
Title translated by AI:“Christmas Carol”
Lee Jang-wook · 46 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:On Christmas Eve a successful consultant hears from a man his wife once dated, who demands a meeting: he wants to spend a night as her husband, lying in her bed.
Yi Sang 2015 · Excellence prize
Heulgui mellodi
Title translated by AI:“Melody of the Earth”
Short story
Yi Sang 2015 · Excellence prize
Baehoe
Title translated by AI:“Wandering”
Son Hong-kyu · 39 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2015 · Excellence prize
Hyuga
Title translated by AI:“Holiday”
Short story
AI-generated summary:Of three friends inseparable since they were fifteen, one is dead and the narrator has broken off his engagement, so on the first day of the summer holiday the third turns up and takes him along on his family's trip.
Yi Sang 2014 · Excellence prize
Naseonui banghyang
Title translated by AI:“The Direction of the Spiral”
Short story
AI-generated summary:Mute since a car crash in which he shielded his younger brother, a man buys clothes in Dongdaemun for the guilt-ridden brother to sell in the provinces, until a mysterious woman named Mal-im turns up in his life.
Yi Sang 2014 · Excellence prize
Pachungnyuui bam
Title translated by AI:“Night of the Reptiles”
Cheon Myeong-kwan · 49 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A woman who has spent over twenty years in book publishing, ending up in charge of its editors, can no longer sleep, and gets through long, lonely nights on pills of every kind.
Yi Sang 2014 · Excellence prize
Bichui howi
Title translated by AI:“Escort of Light”
Cho Haejin · 37 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A magazine reporter interviews Kwon Eun, a promising young photographer, without remembering that years ago, as her classmate, the reporter brought her a stolen film camera when she was a girl shut away at home after her father's death.
Yi Sang 2014 · Excellence prize
Girini anin modeun geose daehan iyagi
Title translated by AI:“A Story about Everything That Is Not a Giraffe”
Lee Jang-wook · 45 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2014 · Excellence prize
Gieogeul ireun jadeurui dosi
Title translated by AI:“City of Those Who Lost Their Memories”
Son Hong-kyu · 38 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:One day everyone in a city loses their memory, and a man, a woman and a girl who can no longer recognise one another begin to play the part of a family.
Yi Sang 2014 · Excellence prize
Kunui yeohaeng
Title translated by AI:“Kun's Journey”
Yun I-hyeong · 37 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2014 · Excellence prize
Peurediui sasaenga
Title translated by AI:“Freddie's Bastard”
Yun Ko-eun · 33 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A tenant who happens to rent the house where Freddie Mercury once lived turns it into an exhibition, filling the rooms with fake belongings of the singer.
Yi Sang 2013 · Excellence prize
Eommado asidasipi
Title translated by AI:“As You Know, Mother”
Chun Woon-young · 41 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:An old man, his mother's eldest son, is left with a grief he cannot contain after she dies at eighty-five, having been bound to her more fiercely than he knew.
Yi Sang 2013 · Excellence prize
Gieogui gogohak: nae Meksiko samchon
Title translated by AI:“An Archaeology of Memory: My Mexican Uncle”
Ham Jeong-im · 48 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:An email from Mexico carries a woman back to her childhood and to her Mexican uncle, whose accordion tunes once filled her with longing for faraway places.
Yi Sang 2013 · Excellence prize
Hyungmong
Title translated by AI:“Nightmare”
Kim Yi-seol · 37 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Cleaning rooms at a motel day and night to pay down the debts that mounted after her husband lost his job, a woman is visited at work one day by him, carrying a bag of money that reeks.
Yi Sang 2013 · Excellence prize
Jeolban isangui haruo
Title translated by AI:“More Than Half of Haruo”
Lee Jang-wook · 44 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2013 · Excellence prize
Dangsini moreuneun iyagi
Title translated by AI:“The Story You Don't Know”
Short story
Yi Sang 2013 · Excellence prize
Bamui machim
Title translated by AI:“The End of the Night”
Pyun Hye-young · 40 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A middle-aged man whose blameless life hides a secret that could wreck it is brought face to face with the girl he was once accused of raping.
Yi Sang 2013 · Excellence prize
Baeuga doen noin
Title translated by AI:“The Old Man Who Became an Actor”
Son Hong-kyu · 37 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:In a park, a young man studying for a government job keeps running into a threadbare old gentleman on a bench, and comes to see his own old age in him.
Yi Sang 2013 · Excellence prize
Seup
Title translated by AI:“Damp”
Yeom Seung-suk · 30 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2012 · Excellence prize
Yuri
Title translated by AI:“Glass”
Cho Haejin · 35 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2012 · Excellence prize
Miruui chosanghwa
Title translated by AI:“Portrait of Miru”
Choi Je-hoon · 38 when first published
Short story · Speculative
AI-generated summary:A woman called Miru asks a painter for her portrait, and their story is told from both sides.
Yi Sang 2012 · Excellence prize
Ohu, garojireuda
Title translated by AI:“Afternoon, Crossing”
Ha Seong-nan · 44 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Office workers sit walled off in cubicles, an arrangement that spares them being exposed to everyone, yet leaves them side by side and out of touch, while loves that were lost slowly take shape in the background.
Yi Sang 2012 · Excellence prize
Jeonyeok siksaga kkeunnan dwi
Title translated by AI:“After Dinner”
Ham Jeong-im · 47 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:After the death of P, the man who officiated at all their weddings, a small circle of friends meets for dinner at Sun-nam's house to remember him without ever saying so.
Yi Sang 2012 · Excellence prize
Geu sungan neowa naneun
Title translated by AI:“At That Moment, You and I”
Jo Hyeon · 42 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:In Wangsimni in the 1980s, the narrator befriends Mi-seol, a shaman's daughter who has inherited her mother's gift of seeing the future, and decides to change fate on the strength of what she tells him.
Yi Sang 2012 · Excellence prize
Seupeurei
Title translated by AI:“Spray”
Kim Kyung-uk · 41 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A department-store shoe salesman who lives by a rigid routine and dreads nothing more than making a mistake carries home, by accident, a parcel meant for another flat, and the slip sets events in motion.
Yi Sang 2012 · Excellence prize
Guksu
Title translated by AI:“Noodles”
Kim Soom · 37 when first published
Short story · Family
AI-generated summary:A woman who cannot have children makes noodles, from the first kneading of the dough, for her stepmother, no blood relation, who was herself sent away for being childless before she married into the family.
Yi Sang 2011 · Excellence prize
Myossisaeng
Hwang Jungeun · 34 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A stray cat that has died five times and come back five times, almost always at human hands, tells the story of its life.
Yi Sang 2011 · Excellence prize
Gukhwareul ango
Title translated by AI:“Holding Chrysanthemums”
Jeon Sungtae · 41 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2011 · Excellence prize
Mogyok ganeun nal
Title translated by AI:“Bath Day”
Jeong Ji-a · 45 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Summoned by a call from her older sister, a middle-aged woman goes to the bathhouse with her mother and sister, the two of them trading insults in thick Jeolla dialect.
Yi Sang 2011 · Excellence prize
Bikbeuradeo
Title translated by AI:“Big Brother”
Kim Kyung-uk · 40 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A pastor's son who bowed to his domineering father now writes sermons of his own, locked in his study, and still needs a calming pill before the pulpit, forever wondering how his brilliant, rebellious older brother would have done it.
Yi Sang 2011 · Excellence prize
아무도 돌아오지 않는 밤 · Amudo doraoji anneun bam
Kim Soom · 36 when first published
Short story · 135 pages
AI-generated summary:A woman who shares her home with her elderly father-in-law, and can hardly bear even to eat with him, sits up one night waiting for him, for her husband and for a neighbour from flat 202, and nobody comes home.
Yi Sang 2011 · Excellence prize
Dwie
Title translated by AI:“Behind”
Kim Tae-yong · 36 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2011 · Excellence prize
Geumgoe gathida
Title translated by AI:“Locked in a Safe”
Kim Un-su · 38 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Two safecrackers open a safe and then manage to lock themselves inside it, together with the woman who helped them, and with nothing left but to wait for the police they kill time among jewels they cannot take out.
Yi Sang 2010 · Excellence prize
무종 · Mujong
Bae Suah · 44 when first published
Short story · 212 pages
AI-generated summary:On a strange night the narrator goes looking for the Mujong tower alongside a man who collects model planes, and the search drifts into memories of hunting for rooms to rent all over Europe until dream and waking blur.
Yi Sang 2010 · Excellence prize
Iyagireul dollyeodeurida
Title translated by AI:“Giving Back the Stories”
Jeon Sungtae · 40 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:As a writer's mother slips into dementia, the son tries to give back to her the tales she once told him as a boy, of the mountain hairtail and of bamboo that blooms once a century.
Yi Sang 2010 · Excellence prize
Geugose bam yeogiui norae
Title translated by AI:“Night There, Song Here”
Kim Ae-ran · 29 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Nearing forty and never made welcome anywhere, cab driver Yongdae works a winter night shift, murmuring basic Chinese phrases after Myeonghwa's recorded voice on a cassette; the two are a couple pushed to the edges of society.
Yi Sang 2010 · Excellence prize
3-gaeui siktak, 3-gaeui dambae
Title translated by AI:“Three Tables, Three Cigarettes”
Kim Jung-hyuk · 38 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:In Megalocity, people know when they will die and are named after the shrinking count of their remaining life; a girl of twenty with four days to go insists that death matters less to her than finding the right question.
Yi Sang 2010 · Excellence prize
통조림공장 · Tongjorim gongjang
Pyun Hye-young · 37 when first published
Short story · 103 pages
AI-generated summary:At a canning factory that has run like clockwork for decades, people vanish without a sound, as if sealed into tins themselves, while the production line carries on unchanged.
Yi Sang 2010 · Excellence prize
Tumyeong ingan
Title translated by AI:“The Invisible Man”
Son Hong-kyu · 34 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:On the father's birthday, his family start a joke game of treating him as if he were invisible, and the prank begins to show how little they had seen him all along.
Yi Sang 2010 · Excellence prize
Maeilmaeil choseungdal
Title translated by AI:“A Crescent Moon Every Day”
Short story
Yi Sang 2009 · Excellence prize
Boribate buneun baram
Title translated by AI:“Wind over the Barley Field”
Gong Sun-ok · 45 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2009 · Excellence prize
두 번째 왈츠 · Du beonjjae walcheu
Jeon Sungtae · 39 when first published
Short story · 220 pages
AI-generated summary:In Mongolia, Nyama has carried since socialist times the role of a national emblem, 'the woman of the fatherland', and her life opens onto the country's past and present.
Yi Sang 2009 · Excellence prize
봄날 오후, 과부 셋 · Bomnal ohu, gwabu set
Jeong Ji-a · 43 when first published
Short story · 93 pages
AI-generated summary:Eiko, Haruko and Sadako, three widows past eighty who have leaned on one another like sisters all their lives, set out together on a spring afternoon.
Yi Sang 2009 · Excellence prize
그리고, 축제 · Geurigo, chukje
Lee Hye-kyung · 48 when first published
Short story · 114 pages
AI-generated summary:Separated from her patient husband since a childhood sexual assault came back to haunt her, Kang Ji-seon goes to Indonesia on a reporting trip, among people still living with the Bali bombings.
Yi Sang 2009 · Excellence prize
Yongyongyongyong
Title translated by AI:“Dragon Dragon Dragon Dragon”
Park Min-gyu · 40 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2009 · Excellence prize
Wanjeonhan hanghae
Title translated by AI:“The Perfect Voyage”
Yun I-hyeong · 32 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:In a future where a tuning agency merges separate selves into one perfected person, a rich man turning fifty is due to absorb Chang, who has one week left to live as himself and longs instead to fly free.
Yi Sang 2008 · Excellence prize
Naega deryeodajulge
Title translated by AI:“I'll Take You There”
Chun Woon-young · 36 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Disgraced by a twisted rumour of an affair with a student, a man leaves a suicide note and walks into a fog-bound marsh, where three generations of women who live off the wetland, a girl, the girl's mother and grandmother, pull him out.
Yi Sang 2008 · Excellence prize
Geu yeoreumui susa
Title translated by AI:“That Summer's Investigation”
Ha Seong-nan · 40 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2008 · Excellence prize
목신의 어떤 오후 · Moksinui eotteon ohu
Jung Young-moon · 42 when first published
Short story · 294 pages
AI-generated summary:Three people picnic on open ground beside a lake, a pipe-smoking man, his cousin and the narrator who lives with her, and go over stories they all know while crows hang about and rain clouds gather.
Yi Sang 2008 · Excellence prize
Seoyeol jeonghagi gungmin tupyo
Title translated by AI:“A Referendum on Rank”
Kim Jong-kwang · 36 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2008 · Excellence prize
Jeongnyujang
Title translated by AI:“The Bus Stop”
Park Hyoung-su · 35 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2008 · Excellence prize
Natjam
Title translated by AI:“Nap”
Park Min-gyu · 39 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:After his wife dies, a man gives up everything and moves into a care home, where he finds Lee Seon, his first love from high school.
Yi Sang 2007 · Excellence prize
Sonyeon J-ui malkkeumhan heobeokji
Title translated by AI:“The Smooth Thighs of the Boy J”
Chun Woon-young · 35 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A studio photographer who shoots nudes, mostly of couples about to marry and of girls, and whose marriage has gone cold, takes on a boy of eighteen as his assistant for a year after the two come to blows.
Yi Sang 2007 · Excellence prize
Bitsogeseo
Title translated by AI:“In the Rain”
Gong Sun-ok · 43 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2007 · Excellence prize
Abeojiwa adeul
Title translated by AI:“Father and Son”
Han Chang-hoon · 43 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A son whose father pushed him off their island to make a life on the mainland comes home, set on putting down roots by the sea after all.
Yi Sang 2007 · Excellence prize
Chimi goinda
Title translated by AI:“Mouthwatering”
Kim Ae-ran · 26 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A tired young woman who rents a small room lets a younger acquaintance move in with her, and during the three months they share it, the newcomer confides how her own mother once abandoned her.
Yi Sang 2007 · Excellence prize
Naegen hyugaga piryohae
Title translated by AI:“I Need a Holiday”
Kim Yeon-su · 36 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2007 · Excellence prize
Yakkongi kkeulleun dongan
Title translated by AI:“While the Black Beans Boil”
Kwon Yeo-sun · 41 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Yoon, a graduate student, is sent to act as go-between for a partly paralysed old professor, confined to a wheelchair since an accident, and spends her days in his house among his sons and his housekeeper.
Yi Sang 2007 · Excellence prize
첫 번째 기념일 · Cheot beonjjae ginyeomil
Pyun Hye-young · 34 when first published
Short story · 192 pages
AI-generated summary:A delivery driver on the edge of a city dreams of a new life, having his ID photo taken every day and rewriting his CV, though he knows his record will never get him a job in the city.
Yi Sang 2006 · Excellence prize
Gin haru
Title translated by AI:“A Long Day”
Gu Gwang-bon · 40 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2006 · Excellence prize
Jadu
Title translated by AI:“Plum”
Ham Jeong-im · 41 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2006 · Excellence prize
Yasangnok
Title translated by AI:“A Record of Night Thoughts”
Jeon Kyung-rin · 43 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Back home after years away, Geumjo shares a bedroom with three generations of women and cannot sleep, going back over her father's death and the man in black, kept away from the funeral, who came to see her afterwards.
Yi Sang 2006 · Excellence prize
Wiheomhan dokseo
Title translated by AI:“Dangerous Reading”
Kim Kyung-uk · 35 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A bibliotherapist who prescribes books the way a doctor prescribes medicine takes on a client who calls herself worthless and wants a book that will help her end a seven-year relationship, and finds her harder to read than any text.
Yi Sang 2006 · Excellence prize
Aiseukeurim
Title translated by AI:“Ice Cream”
Kim Young-ha · 37 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A couple who bought ice cream that smells of petrol report it to the manufacturer, and grow uneasy when a company man, Manager Kim, comes to their home to investigate.
Yi Sang 2005 · Excellence prize
Se beonjjae yubang
Title translated by AI:“The Third Breast”
Chun Woon-young · 33 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A man whose grandmother's breast was, in his childhood, his one way into love and the wider world becomes fixated on a 'third breast', a small swelling beside a nipple, when he happens upon it on a woman.
Yi Sang 2005 · Excellence prize
Nabireul wihan allibai
Title translated by AI:“An Alibi for the Butterfly”
Kim Kyung-uk · 34 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2005 · Excellence prize
Dosiui bulbit
Title translated by AI:“City Lights”
Lee Hye-kyung · 44 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2005 · Excellence prize
Pyojeong gwalli jusikhoesa
Title translated by AI:“Expression Management, Inc.”
Lee Man-kyo · 37 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2005 · Excellence prize
Gabeul gosiwon cheryugi
Title translated by AI:“A Stay at the Gabeul Study Lodge”
Park Min-gyu · 36 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:When his father's business goes bankrupt and the family scatters, a student moves into the cheapest study house near his university, a room the size of a coffin where he learns never to make a sound.
Yi Sang 2005 · Excellence prize
Nae yeojachinguui gwiyeoun yeonae
Title translated by AI:“My Girlfriend's Cute Love Affair”
Yun Young-su · 52 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Yangmi has given nearly twenty years since high school to paying her siblings' tuition and supporting her family, until, still unmarried, she starts spending on herself and falls in love.
Yi Sang 2004 · Excellence prize
Bami jinada
Title translated by AI:“The Night Passes”
Short story
Yi Sang 2004 · Excellence prize
그림자 아이 · Geurimja ai
Ha Seong-nan · 36 when first published
Short story · 350 pages
AI-generated summary:His memory wiped out by an accident, a man lives in a sanatorium; his family's visits bring nothing back, and instead he grows fixated on a deserted bike fitted with a child's seat that stands in view of his window.
Yi Sang 2004 · Excellence prize
Jonjaeui sup
Title translated by AI:“The Forest of Being”
Jeon Sungtae · 34 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A comedian who lives by his impressions goes into a remote country valley hunting for material, where old villagers tell him about the land, its creatures and its past, and visions blur time and place.
Yi Sang 2004 · Excellence prize
발칸의 장미를 내게 주었네 · Balkanui jangmireul naege jueonne
Jung Mi-kyung · 43 when first published
Short story · 130 pages
AI-generated summary:With his wife and children sent off to America, a lonely man starts an affair with Jaei, a nurse who lives one floor away from him, on the understanding that neither of them will ask too much of the other.
Yi Sang 2004 · Excellence prize
Jinheuk paireul gumneun sigan
Title translated by AI:“Time for Baking Mud Pies”
Kim Seung-hee · 51 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2004 · Excellence prize
Neulgeusin eomeoniui hyanggi
Title translated by AI:“The Scent of My Old Mother”
Moon Soon-tae · 62 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2004 · Excellence prize
Gomawo, gwayeon neoguriya
Title translated by AI:“Thanks, You Really Are a Raccoon Dog”
Park Min-gyu · 35 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2003 · Excellence prize
Nae eolgure eorin kkot
Title translated by AI:“The Flower in My Face”
Bok Geo-il · 56 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:On Jupiter's moon Ganymede in 2998, after comet debris has wiped out every human, a robot named Jimmy Chan, once trapped in the ice, lives among other robots who still long for the people they lost.
Yi Sang 2003 · Excellence prize
자전소설 · Jajeon soseol
Ha Seong-nan · 35 when first published
Short story · 350 pages
Yi Sang 2003 · Excellence prize
Buin naesirui cheolhak
Title translated by AI:“Philosophy in the Lady's Chamber”
Jeon Kyung-rin · 40 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Huiu's husband, a high-ranking official, beats her and forces himself on her; rather than divorce him or walk out, she keeps up a secret relationship with Giyun, who is married himself.
Yi Sang 2003 · Excellence prize
Peullanaria
Title translated by AI:“Planaria”
Jeon Sang-guk · 62 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:When the woman he has lived with for three years vanishes, a man finds her disappearance strangely bound up with the planarian, a flatworm that can reproduce on its own.
Yi Sang 2003 · Excellence prize
Hotel yuro, 1203
Title translated by AI:“Hotel Euro, 1203”
Jung Mi-kyung · 42 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A woman who writes scripts for broadcasting, and poems on the side, drifts through a glittering shopping arcade, buying her way toward the glamorous life of a television actress she has made her model.
Yi Sang 2003 · Excellence prize
Goyangiui sasaenghwal
Title translated by AI:“The Private Life of Cats”
Kim Kyung-uk · 32 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A married man becomes set on meeting a woman he knows only by her chat name, Cat, and roams about looking for a way into her room and for the tree at which she has said she will be waiting.
Yi Sang 2003 · Excellence prize
Noran yeondeung deunopi naegeolgo
Title translated by AI:“Hanging the Yellow Lanterns High”
Kim Yeon-su · 32 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Told in two alternating voices, the story stays with a young woman grieving after an abortion and with the one who hangs her yellow lantern high where all can see it, as a wound left by love slowly mends.
Yi Sang 2003 · Excellence prize
Neoui uimi
Title translated by AI:“What You Mean”
Kim Young-ha · 34 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2003 · Excellence prize
Geu namjaui chaek 198-jjok
Title translated by AI:“Page 198 of His Book”
Short story
Yi Sang 2002 · Excellence prize
Yuryeongui jip
Title translated by AI:“The Haunted House”
Choi In-ho · 56 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2002 · Excellence prize
Nunborakon
Chun Woon-young · 30 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2002 · Excellence prize
Yeoin
Title translated by AI:“A Woman”
Han Chang-hoon · 38 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2002 · Excellence prize
Mariui jip
Title translated by AI:“Mari's House”
Jo Kyung-ran · 32 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Jang Malhui, a guide in a museum of African art, lives alone; then a man claiming to research a film appears at the museum, and her neighbour across the street says she runs a café.
Yi Sang 2002 · Excellence prize
Jugeun saramui uibok
Title translated by AI:“A Dead Man's Clothes”
Jung Young-moon · 36 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2002 · Excellence prize
Bamui gosokdoro
Title translated by AI:“Night Highway”
Kim In-suk · 38 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2002 · Excellence prize
Cheotsarang
Title translated by AI:“First Love”
Kim Yeon-su · 31 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:Writing a letter years later, the narrator goes back to a first love in 1980s Gimcheon, and to the hurt done to someone's heart at a time when neither could yet tell that what they felt was love.
Yi Sang 2002 · Excellence prize
Iinsogeuk
Title translated by AI:“A Farce for Two”
Yun Young-su · 49 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2001 · Excellence prize
Modeun namuneun yaegireul handa
Title translated by AI:“Every Tree Tells a Story”
Choi In-seok · 47 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2001 · Excellence prize
Saundeu obeu sailleonseu
Title translated by AI:“The Sound of Silence”
Short story
Yi Sang 2001 · Excellence prize
Sesangui kkeuteuro gan saram
Title translated by AI:“The Man Who Went to the End of the World”
Han Chang-hoon · 37 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:When his wife Seon-yeong is killed in a road accident, a man drifts through his grief until he reaches the sea, the edge of the world, meaning to end his life there.
Yi Sang 2001 · Excellence prize
Geu seome gagi silta
Title translated by AI:“I Don't Want to Go to That Island”
Short story
Yi Sang 2001 · Excellence prize
Bipanamu geuneul arae
Title translated by AI:“Under the Loquat Tree's Shade”
Short story
AI-generated summary:Left without memory by a shock too great to bear, a man stays at a Buddhist temple where monks help him recover his past: the loss of his only little boy, and the grief that wore down him and his wife.
Yi Sang 2001 · Excellence prize
Gomunhaneun gomundanghaneun ja
Title translated by AI:“The Torturer, the Tortured”
Jung Young-moon · 35 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2001 · Excellence prize
Naneun aju orae sal geosida
Title translated by AI:“I Will Live a Very Long Time”
Lee Seung-u · 41 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2000 · Excellence prize
Punggyeong sori
Title translated by AI:“The Sound of Wind Chimes”
Choi Il-nam · 67 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2000 · Excellence prize
Maemiui ilsaeng
Title translated by AI:“The Life of a Cicada”
Choi Soo-cheol · 41 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2000 · Excellence prize
Dot nangneun eobu
Han Chang-hoon · 36 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:On Noru Island, worn down by years of famine, a widowed fisherman who has never won the widowed diver he loves goes out after the dot of the title to feed the hungry islanders.
Yi Sang 2000 · Excellence prize
Naui jajutbit sopa
Title translated by AI:“My Purple Sofa”
Jo Kyung-ran · 30 when first published
Short story
AI-generated summary:A woman who makes cheap novelty name cards for a living, and who counts for little in anyone's eyes, writes long, intimate letters to a correspondence club, addressed to no one in particular, as a way out of her solitude.
Yi Sang 2000 · Excellence prize
Abiui jam
Title translated by AI:“Father's Sleep”
Lee Soon-won · 42 when first published
Short story
Yi Sang 2000 · Excellence prize
Pogueseo on pyeonji
Title translated by AI:“A Letter from the Harbour”
Short story
Yi Sang 2000 · Excellence prize
Mul sogui jip
Title translated by AI:“The House under Water”
Short story