Park Ynhui

Park Ynhui, who lived from 1930 to 2017, was a South Korean poet and philosopher who published his poetry under the pen name Park Yeemun. He earned an undergraduate degree in French literature from Seoul National University and a PhD in philosophy from the Sorbonne in Paris, then taught for three decades at universities in Japan, Germany, France and the United States, including Simmons College until his 1993 retirement, before returning to teach at Pohang University and Yonsei University in South Korea. His poetry, collected in volumes such as The Snow on the Charles River in 1979 and Dream of a Butterfly in 1981, explored existential themes of void, meaning and the search for consolation amid suffering, and he received the Inchon Award in 2006 and the Tanso Cultural Award in 2012.