Nobel Literature Prize laureates Wole Soyinka and Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio met with South Korean poet Ko Un for a literary forum in Gyeongju, an ancient city southeast of Seoul.
Soyinka, Clezio and Ko cited rage, self-satisfaction and condolence, respectively, as the origin of their literary world during the forum held Wednesday as part of the 78th PEN International Congress.
The Nigeria-born writer Soyinka opened the talk, saying that writing always makes him happy but entails pain.
The pain comes because he is too sensitive to things happening in the society where he belongs.
Citing the historical facts that France had conducted nuclear tests in the Sahara Desert in Africa from 1960, Soyinka said he wrote about that, feeling much pressure to do something to combat the wrongdoing at that time, and could eventually prevent another nuclear bomb from detonating in Africa.
He recalled that he felt a sense of relief that he at least did something to change the society as a citizen and a writer.
On the other hand, Clezio said he writes not for a great cause, others or the mankind, but for himself.
The French writer said he began to write his first book on a hot summer day. The writing was closer to being a type of “joke” rather than a serious work but earned him a prize. It was all by chance that he became an author, he said.
Ko said he has always felt guilty about those who were killed during the 1950-53 Korean War and in the democratization process.
“The dead people keep talking to me, and I maybe cannot stop listening to them and writing,” the South Korean poet said, defining himself as a poet of elegies.
The PEN congress opened on Sunday for a week-long run under the theme “Literature, Media and Human Rights.”
Established in 1921 in London as an international association of writers, the PEN International has since hosted the congress in different cities around the world each year. This is the third time for the event to be held in South Korea. The two previous events were held in Seoul in 1970 and 1988.
