Chinese‑American author Ha Jin, often regarded as the contemporary writer closest to the Nobel Prize in Literature, and Professor Wang Eun‑cheol of Jeonbuk National University (JBNU), Department of English Language & Literature, who first introduced him to Korea through interviews and translations and has translated nine of his works. Their long and special friendship, rooted in literature, has borne sweet fruit.

Author Ha Jin won the inaugural Bucheon Diaspora Literary Award this year for his novel A Free Life, and Professor Wang Eun‑cheol, who translated the novel, received the Translator Award. The awards ceremony was held on November 23 at Bucheon Art Bunker B39.

A Free Life was published in English in the United States in 2007, and was introduced domestically when Professor Wang translated and published it in Korean in 2014.

The novel depicts, through characters who, having witnessed the 1989 Tiananmen events, chose not to return to their homeland, the first‑generation immigrants' irrevocably lost homeland, the stolen language, a land of freedom that remains harsh to them, and nevertheless their determination not to abandon life and poetry.

For the awards ceremony, Ha Jin traveled to Korea and specifically visited Jeonbuk National University (JBNU), where his long‑time friend Professor Wang Eun‑cheol is on the faculty, to hold a public conversation with Professor Wang about "A Free Life." The special literary event, forged by their friendship, took place the next day, November 24, at 2:00 PM in Donghaeng Hall on the 7th floor of the JBNU New Silk Road Center.

After witnessing the 1989 Tiananmen events and deciding to remain in the United States, Ha Jin began writing in English. He has received the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award twice, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Josephine Miles Award, among others, and was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He has published nine novels, including War Trash, which is set during the Korean War; four short story collections, including A Good Fall; and seven poetry collections, including A Distant Center. After serving as a professor at Emory University, he is currently a professor in the Department of English and the Creative Writing Program at Boston University.

Translator Professor Wang Eun‑cheol graduated from the Department of English Language & Literature at JBNU and earned a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Maryland. He has received the Yoo Young Translation Award, the Jeon Sook‑hee Literary Award, the Korean Association of English Language & Literature Academic Award, the Mystery of Life Award, and the JBNU Academic Award, among others. He has translated more than 50 novels into Korean. <Hyundae Munhak> served as his debut platform as a literary critic, and he currently serves as a Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of English Language & Literature at JBNU.