Yan Lianke (1958~)
Born in Song County, Henan Province, China, Yan Lianke graduated from Henan University in 1985 with a degree in politics and education, and the People's Liberation Army Art Institute in 1991 with a degree in Literature. He started his literary career since 1978, and so far has published a number of novels, short stories, and essays, which brought him the support and recognition from both literary institutions and the public as a so-called ‘the most explosive writer.’ Meanwhile, he is regarded as a writer who concerns a great deal with and who strives to touch the very essence of literature through his works, regardless of literary criticism and popularity. Many of his works have been translated and published in over 20 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, France, and Italy, and have also been cinematized. He was nominated for the Man Booker Prize from 2013 to 2017 and won the Hua Zhong World Chinese Literature Prize in Malaysia in 2013, the Franz Kafka Prize in 2014, the Dream of the Red Chamber Award in 2016, and the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature in 2021. Also, his name is mentioned every year as a potential nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Yan Lianke has based his works mainly on the most basic and universal values of people, such as human rights and freedom against the violence of the state and the system; he is an uncommon writer who has never yielded to any sanctions and disadvantages resulting from this. In his book Silence and Rest: Chinese Literature in My Experience (2014), he once pointed out “in the reality of China today, it is difficult to say that a writer without a work prohibited from publication and distribution is a true writer.” While most of Chinese writers abandon the essential responsibility to represent their time and people as a writer and their ‘bizarre stories’ which are produced as a craft by adjusting Western novel aesthetics to the existing storytelling tradition dominate the publishing market, Yan Lianke whose literary works have been of critical writings based on reality consistently for his 40-year career could be said as a Chinese representation of Lee Hochul’s literary practice.
Among contemporary Chinese writers, Yan Lianke is the most prolific writer with the largest volume of works who has kept on creation steadily for nearly forty years. His creations are not limited to novels; his other forms of writing, such as prose and theory, have been also acknowledged as well in each field. Especially in his essay Discovering Fiction (2011), he suggested the idea “mythorealism” and it is highly regarded as pioneering a new area of contemporary Chinese novel aesthetics.
After being selected as the recipient of the 6th Lee Hochul Literary Prize for Peace, Yan Lianke said in his acceptance speech that “Just as pain and wounds, and beauty and light cannot be separated from each other, so my writing is deeply intertwined with reality and all the plight of people in the world,” adding that he will continue to write as always and keep his pen and paper for the rest of his life.
Yan Lianke currently lives in Beijing and works as a professor at the School of Literary Studies, Renmin University of China.

Jang Mari (1967~)
Born in 1967, in Buan, Jeonbuk, Jang Mari completed the PhD course in Literature and Creative Writing in Wonkwang University. Since her mid-30s, Jang started writing novels in earnest and made her debut with the short story “Blow the Spring Wind” in Munhaksasang. From then on, she deals with social problems and the shadows of the era through her works. Jang’s major works include Sunset Blues — selected as a Problem Novel of the Year in 2010 and of which heme is based on the Saemangeum development —, How to Get Married Twice (co-authored) — the story of a family of nine people —, Blind — a family narration that tells a traumatic story of the children suffering from the mistakes of their parents—, and The Strangers in Siberia, the most recent work of hers that unfolds an epic spanning South and North Korea and Russia with the backdrop of a logging site in Siberia.
Jang Mari wrote The Strangers in Siberia after receiving the Arco Literature Creation Fund from Arts Council Korea in 2019. For this work, she went to and visited a logging site in Siberia twice for research. This novel tells a dazzling story of beautiful but failed young people and tries to solve the problems of this era across the Korean Peninsula and Siberia in a breathtaking way through portraying human beings embracing and struggling with the reality of life. On the other hand, this work is also a passionate ode to all those who are defeated by the harsh reality but nevertheless want to plunge into the center of life. Jang said that she “constructed a story based on what she heard from an acquaintance who actually runs a sawmill in Gunsan” and wrote the story of “the illegality that takes place in the logging farm where South Korea, North Korea and Russia are connected and the miserable lives of North Korean defectors”, and wanted to ask, “what ideology means to humans.” The Selection Committee for the Special Award of the Lee Hochul Literary Prize for Peace selected The Strangers in Siberia as its sixth Special Award, saying “it shows a very specific critical awareness of the divided reality and ideology and a dense approach based on faithful research, and the thematic aspect of the work also is in line with the purpose of this literary award.”
Jang Mari, who says that it is the writer's responsibility to deal with social problems in writing, currently lives in Iksan and writes from 9 am to 5 pm every day, while teaching reading and discussing, and writing classes at Iksan Educational and Cultural Center, Jeonju Citizens' College, and other schools.