culture

Kim Sang O left an indelible trace in the DPRK’s history of literature.

His lyric My Motherland is still favoured by and widely recited among the Korean people.

The poem just reflected the poet’s inmost thoughts.

He was born in Haeju, South Hwanghae Province, in 1917.

From childhood, he had a special liking for fine art and music as well as literature, but the boy’s dream could not come true. In his youth, his poems were filled with sorrow and wrath of a miserable man of a colony as he experienced the suffering of his country trampled down under the Japanese imperialists’ rule.

Looking up to Mt Paektu as a beacon of hope, he joined an anti-Japanese underground organization and wrote poems of resistance.

After the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung liberated Korea by defeating the Japanese imperialists, he wrote poems about a new democratic Korea and a new vibrant life, filled with ardent love.

At that time, he worked as editor-in-chief of the newspaper Jayu Hwanghae.

In those days he met Kim Il Sung whom he had revered so much. The President praised an editorial he had carried in the newspaper and indicated the orientation and ways for improving the publication of the paper.

Charmed by the the great leader's personality traits as an outstanding great man held in reverence by the whole nation, Sang O gave wide publicity to the traits in the newspaper.

Later, he worked as assistant editor-in-chief of Minju Joson, the organ of the government of the DPRK. During the Fatherland Liberation War, he created many poems like With Flames of Hatred out of burning hatred for the US imperialist aggressors.

He wrote in succession many masterpieces of lyrics, poems, novels, literary comments, biographies and essays. They include such songs as A Bumper Harvest in the Chongsan Plain and We’ve Planted Skullcap and Crab-Apple Trees on the Mountains which are popular with the Korean people. 

Everybody was fond of reading his works on diverse themes and of various styles as they are characterized by ardent love for life, deep emotion, philosophical speculation and a high grade of intelligence.

Based on the course of his life, his long-accumulated experience in life and deep philosophical speculation, he sang highly in My Motherland that the genuine motherland is just the life and pride brought back by the President and his eternal embrace. The poem caused an overwhelming sensation as soon as it was published and everyone loved to recite it.

A winner of Kim Il Sung Prize and poet of passion, he is still alive in the memory of the people along with My Motherland.