Like a hyacinth that bursts into bloom and then fades, Kim Seungok (b. 1941) wrote more than 10 short stories, essays, screenplays and novellas between the ages of 21 and 25, between 1962 and 1966. His stories burst to fame at the time from the pages of Seoul’s newspapers and literary magazines, and most of his works are still read today. Kim led a wave of early and mid-1960s authors who were fed up with the prior dictator’s arrogance and nervous about the new dictator’s tightening grip. He wrote about rapid urbanization and the realities of living in these rapidly growing new cities. He wrote about how the human fits in between the city and the countryside, the modern and the past.