Hwang was born in Xinjing (today
Changchun),
Manchukuo, during the
period of Japanese rule. His family returned to Korea after liberation in 1945. He later obtained a
bachelor's degree in
philosophy from
Dongguk University. Hwang has been an avid reader of a wide range of literature and he wanted to become a writer since childhood. In 1964, he was jailed for political reasons and met labor activists. Upon his release he worked at a cigarette factory and at several construction sites around the country. In 1966–1969, he was part of the
Republic of Korea Marine Corps during the
Vietnam War, reluctantly fighting for the American cause that he saw as an attack on a liberation struggle: In Vietnam he was responsible for "clean-up", erasing the proof of civilian massacres and burying the dead. A gruesome experience in which he was constantly surrounded by corpses that were gnawed by rats and abuzz with flies. Based on these experiences he wrote the short story "The Pagoda" in 1970, which won the daily newspaper
Chosun Ilbo's new year prize, and embarked on an adult literary career. His first novel ''
Mr. Han's Chronicle'', the story of a family separated by the
Korean War, was published in 1970. The novel is still relevant after
Kim Dae-jung's visit to North Korea and meeting with
Kim Jong Il led to reunions of separated families and talk of reunification. ''Mr. Han's Chronicle'' was translated into French by Zulma in 2002. Hwang published a collection of stories,
On the Road to Sampo in 1974, and became a household name with his epic,
Jang Gilsan, which was serialized in a daily newspaper over a period of ten years (1974-84). Using the parable of a bandit from olden times ("parables are the only way to foil the censors") to describe the contemporary dictatorship,
Chang Kil-san was a huge success in North as well as South Korea. It sold an estimated million copies and remains a bestseller in Korean fiction. Hwang also wrote for the theater, and several members of a company were killed while performing one of his plays during the 1980
Gwangju uprising. During this time, he went from being a politically committed writer revered by students and intellectuals, to participating directly in the struggle. As he said: {{blockquote|I fought
Park Chung-hee's dictatorship. I worked in the factories and farms of Cholla, and I took part in the movements of the masses throughout the country . . . in 1980, I took part in the Gwangju uprising. I improvised plays, wrote pamphlets and songs, coordinated a group of writers against the dictatorship, and started a clandestine radio station called "The voice of free Kwangju. Hwang's substantial and award-winning novel based on his bitter experience of the
Vietnam War,
The Shadow of Arms was published in 1985. It was translated into English in 1994 and French in 2003. In 1989, he illegally traveled to
Pyongyang, North Korea, via
Tokyo and
Beijing as a representative of the nascent democratic movement. Rather than return to South Korea, he went into voluntary exile in New York, lecturing at
Long Island University. He also spent time in Germany, which he found transformational. In 1993, he returned to Seoul because "a writer needs to live in the country of his mother tongue" and was promptly sentenced to seven years in prison for breach of the National Security Law. While in prison, he conducted 18
hunger strikes against restrictions such as the banning of pens and inadequate nutrition. Organizations around the world including
PEN America and
Amnesty rallied for his release and the author was finally pardoned in 1998 as part of a group amnesty by newly elected President Kim Dae-jung. When asked whether the regime that freed him recognized his work and even sent him on an official visit to North Kores as part of a policy of opening up and promoting dialogue was a democracy, he replied: Hwang Sok-yong published his next novel,
The Old Garden, in 2000. It was published in German in fall 2005 by DTV and in French by Zulma. The English-language edition, called
The Old Garden, was published in September 2009 by
Seven Stories Press and subsequently in the UK by Picador Asia under the title
The Ancient Garden. The early chapters of the book are being serialized online.
The Guest, a novel about a massacre in North Korea wrongly attributed to Americans that was carried out by Christian Koreans, was published in 2002. It was translated into French in 2004 and Seven Stories brought out the English-language edition to critical acclaim in 2005. The "guest" is a euphemism for
smallpox, or an unwanted visitor that brings death and destruction. In December 2013, Seven Stories published his novel
The Shadow of Arms. A novel based on the author's experience in Korea's military corps fighting America's war in Vietnam, it reveals the regional economic motivations for the conflict within the larger Cold War. In 2024 Hwang's book
Mater 2-10 longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2024. ==Work==