KO UN (b. 1933) is a South Korean poet who gained an international readership with verse informed by both his political activism in Korea and a broader concern for humanity.  Lawrence Ferlinghetti called him "Korea's greatest living Zen poet."  His works have been translated and published in more than fifteen countries, and he is routinely mentioned as one of the front runners for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

After suffering during the Korean War, Ko became a Buddhist monk and lived a monastic life for ten years.  In the 1970s and 1980s, he became a leading spokesman in the struggle for freedom and democracy, for which he was imprisoned and tortured.  Despite Ko's career in political activism, his poetry is not didactic or shrill; rather, it reflects his study of the Chinese and Zen traditions and a concern with humanity that ran even deeper than his political beliefs.  He began writing in a Modernist vein, but he soon turned out more lively, passionate, and down-to-earth verses that were rooted in Korea's Chinese and Japanese legacies but that above all rejoiced in their Koreanness.

His poems range from quiet imagistic reflections to the epigrammatic pieces in FLOWERS OF A MOMENT (2002) with their haiku-like juxtapositions.  Other works, however, are huge, like the monumental 30-volume MANINBO ("Ten Thousand Lives"), written between 1983-2010 to fulfil a vow made by Ko during his final imprisonment, when he was expecting to be executed.  Essentially narrative, each poem offers a brief glimpse of an individual's life and span the whole of Korean history, from earliest pre-history to the present time.  The edition included here represents a selection from volumes 11 to 20, with the last half of the book focused on the sufferings of the Korean people during the Korean War.

LITTLE PILGRIM (1969-91) is a tale of adventure and self-discovery in the tradition of Hermann Hesse's "Siddhartha".  Based on the Gandavyuha, one of Buddhism's deepest and most challenging scriptures, the novel relates the heroic journey of Sudhana, who sets out to discover what is truth.  Throughout 20 years of fantastic travels, Sudhana encounters teachers that are human, animal, and spirit as he navigates mountain vistas, lush valleys, and remote villages.

In 2018 Ko became the centre of a sexual harassment scandal.  Ko has denied any wrongdoing.


The following books are in ePUB or PDF format as indicated:

* First Person Sorrowful (Bloodaxe, 2012). Br. Anthony & Lee Sang-Wha, trans. — ePUB
* Five Poems (Mindfulness Bell, Autumn 2008). Various translators. — PDF
* Flowers of a Moment (BOA Editions, 2006). Br. Anthony et al., trans. — ePUB
* Little Pilgrim: A Novel (Parallax, 2005). Br. Anthony & Young-moo Kim, trans. — PDF
* Maninbo: Peace and War (Bloodaxe, 2015). Br. Anthony & Lee Sang-Wha, trans. — ePUB
* Songs for Tomorrow: Poems 1960-2002 (Green Integer, 2008). Br. Anthony et al. — PDF

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