Kim Takhwan

Kim Takhwan (born October 27, 1968) is a South Korean novelist and literary critic. He left the security of a tenured professorship to focus on his writing career.

Indestructible, a four-volume novel about Yi Sun-sin, the famed naval general who led victorious maritime battles against Japanese invaders from 1592 to 1598, focuses on the humanistic depiction of the hero and his internal struggles. Kim expanded this novel into eight volumes and publishing it under the new title The Immortal Yi Sun-sin. Another historical novel, The Last Nineteen Days of Heo Gyun details the life of Heo Gyun, a mid-Joseon Dynasty writer, revolutionary and the author of the classic novel Tale of Hong Gildong, and at the same time conveys the sense of despair as well as fervor experienced by the intellectuals of the 1980s. In the similar manner, the sentiments expressed in Apnok River, a seven-volume novel about the life of the legendary general Im Gyeong-eop, parallels the sense of chaos that plagued the intellectuals in the 1990s as a result of the fall of the eastern block. I, Hwang Jini dramatizes the life of Hwang Jini, the famed gisaeng from the Joseon Dynasty who was also a gifted writer and an intellectual. This novel was also published in a critical edition that contains abundant annotations and supplemental texts.