VOL.69/2024.04

Korean Authors

 

Author-illustrator Yi Gee Eun

 

2021.08.02

 

 

Please introduce yourself to our readers.

 

I’m really grateful to be able to work so happily like this. My name is Yi Gee Eun, author of the illustrated books Iparapa Yamooyamoo (SAKYEJUL PUBLISHING LTD.) and The Story How the Korean Shaved Ice Dessert was Born (Woongjin ThinkBig Co., Ltd.).

 

 

Why did you want to be a writer?

 

When I was young, I wasn’t very good at drawing. One day my father and mother told me that actually I was good at drawing so I should become a painter. I thought I should be a painter and then that became my dream. Because I always lived with a lot of hunger for painting, working on writing and painting was a natural choice for me.

 

Your dog Kung-i is so cute, can you introduce your dog?

 

At first, it physically made me move. It’s the only thing that made me move 365 days a year for the past 4 years. I used to be a couch potato. When my dog was young, I had to walk with it for two hours in the morning, one hour at lunch time and two hours in the evening. I had to move every day. So thanks to Kung-i. I had time to enjoy nature in all four seasons. I found positivity doing this, which affected my work. My dog changed my life.

 

How do you work?

 

I think about the story first. Like a drama story. I think about a very specific story as a whole and then I do the writing and drawings to fit the story. I think about whether it has warmth and lightness which will make people laugh. I keep this in mind as I’m working on the rest of the story, centering myself on that fixed idea of lightness and warmth.

 

Where do you find inspiration when working?

 

I think physical time and habits need to be built up in order to find inspiration. It is like trying to find something. I don’t have much intellectual curiosity and I don’t really enjoy traveling either, so I find inspiration from the familiar things that are around me.

 

I heard that My Grandma Mum contains your precious memories.

 

Throughout my childhood, my mother and father always worked and were very busy, so my maternal grandmother was my “mother”. So I wanted to spend time with my grandmother and show my grandmother to others. I made a picture book about my time with my grandmother as a child. It came out as a book called My Grandma Mum (Woongjin ThinkBig Co., Ltd.). All the grandmothers were so impressed they said thank you. I think it was like their own story.

 

 

Do you have any other books you would like to introduce?

 

I have a book that I thought more people would read. That’s A Red fruit (SAKYEJUL PUBLISHING LTD.). The story for A Red fruit just came to me one night. The story appeared all of a sudden. It’s a very rare experience for me, so I like it even more. Depending on the reader’s age and period of life, it can be interpreted in various ways. At first, I only thought it was a baby bear’s journey. When I read it now, there are many more stories interwoven there – more than I could tell when I wrote the book initially. So I hope you read it.

 

What are your plans for the future?

 

I will continue to live happily, making picture books. As more of my books are published I hope I can present them to a larger audience, and that the people who read them are very happy and having fun. That makes me excited. I want to run down that career path fast. I am working with this in mind.

 

 

* The interview and video were produced as a part of the K-Book Online Marketing Support Project of the Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea (KPIPA).

 

 

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