Themes
2006 Seoul Young Writers' Festival
Newness
- Date2006.05.07.(Sun) ~ 2006.05.13.(Sat)
- VenueSeoul, Gyeonsnagbuk-do
- Organizing CommitteeKim Younsu, Kim Hyeongyun, Park Sangsun, Park Seongchang, Park Cheolhwa, Bong Junsu, Ham Jeung im
“If the world's young writers should meet around the theme of 'literature', what form would that meeting take?”Until I, as a committee member and author, joined the first preparatory meeting in October 2004, for what would become this Festival, the question never left me. Though we speak different languages, we share the same contemporary world, where the meaning of borders has weakened. Whenever or wherever we meet, we should be able to sit down and talk, about life, about literature, about the human world. So the first thing to do would be to minimalize borders, that is form, and maximalize interaction. I know of no other great way to interact that would ease the meeting of people new to each other than a festival. Homo ludens: from the beginning, humans have been a playful lot. Festivals have continued throughout human history: in the workplace, on the battlefield, even in the ruins. To put down your pen, to meet the eyes of a writer who have just come out from their cramped room, to take their hand; is this not already the beginning of a festival? To talk about literature through an unfamiliar language, with authors you've never met before, coming all over, from Chile, from Budapest, from Scotland, from Buenos Aires; isn't even the thought exhilarating? The <2006 Seoul Young Writers' Festival> will become an amazing event that will unfold a new page of the festival in Korean literary history.