Jeong Yi-hyeon

Jeong Yi-hyeon is a South Korean novelist.

Life

Jeong Yi-hyeon was born in Seoul in 1972. She graduated from Sungshin Women's University Graduate School, and studied in the Department of Creative Writing at Seoul Institute of the Arts.

Career

Jeong Yi-hyeon began her literary career in 2001. In 2002, she received the New Writer's Award by Moonji. Soon thereafter, her short story The Loneliness of Others received the Lee Hyo-seok Literary Award, and Sampoong Department Store received the Modern Literary Award.
Jeong Yi-hyeon is also an innovator in the field of Internet serialization in Korea, having written her second novel You Do Not Know, on the Kyobo Book Center blog. Initial posting of chapters resulted in 400,000 visitors to the serial.

Works

In opposition to the Korean literary tradition of focusing on the marginalised and dispossessed, Jeong Yi-hyeon depicts the dating, marriage, career lives, desires and conflicts of urban women. Her works are frequently set in the wealthy Seoul neighborhood of Gangnam. She is known to describe those things in a sharp and cheerful way.
My Sweet City is considered to be the beginning of her fame. It is regarded as the origin of representative South Korean chick lit. After My Sweet City was published, it ignited a chick lit craze in Korea. My Sweet City is considered to describe accurately women in their 30s. It was made into a Korean drama, and aroused sympathy from women in their 20s and 30s.
LIST Magazine summarizes her work:

Awards

Source:

Literature and Society New Author Award
Yi Hyo-seok Literary Award
Hyundae Literary Award