For Korea's literary world, the most significant event this season was the completion of a cultural center named after Park Kyo※ng-ni's most famous novel Toji (Land) in Wonju, Kangwon Province. Park dedicated twenty five years (1969 to 1994) to finish her epic novel Toji on a daughter of a ruined aristocratic family who struggles to regain her lost family land. Consisting of sixteen volumes, Toji is widely acclaimed as a monument of contemporary Korean literature. After thorough historical research, Park presents a vivid and accurate panorama of Korea from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century such as Korean people's struggle against the Japanese brutal colonial rule and the grave internal clashes between agrarian and industrial values. Parts of Toji were translated into English in 1996 and included in UNESCO Collection of Representative Works. President Kim Dae-jung and First Lady Lee Hee-ho with many other celebrities representing cultural circle of Korea attended the ceremony dedicating the Toji Cultural Center, the first of its kind in Korea.

The first part of The Complete Works of Cho Jeong-rae was recently published by Hae Nam publishing company. Two of his representative novels such as Playing with Fire and Daejanggyeong (The Great Buddhist Sutras) and the collection of his short stories entitled The Landscape of Loss are included in this first part. Kim Jong-ran, Professor of French at Sang Ji University in Wonjoo, was selected as the recipient of the 14th So-wol Poetry Award hosted by MunHakSaSangSa. The 23rd Hyeondae Munhak Award was awarded to ten Novelist Ko Un-ju and Wu Kwang-hun, and poet Soeng Su-kwon received the 11th Jeong Ji-yeong Literary Award for his "Snowy Bamboo Woods." The first Baek So※k Literary Prize was awarded to poet Hwang Chi-u for his collection of poems, Someday I Will Be Sitting in a Dimly-Lit Bar and to Poet Lee Sang-guk for Home is Still Warm. Commemorating eighteenth-century German writer Johann Volfgang von Goethe's 250th birthday, various events including a Goethe Festival, performances, concerts, and lectures are planned in Korea. An eighteen-volume collection of Goethe's major works translated into Korean, a project made possible by a donation from Park Chan-ki, an honorary professor at Korea University, will be published this summer. Sponsored by the Korean Embassy in Germany and Hamburg University, a Symposium on Korean Literature was held in Hamburg, Germany with the theme "Korean Literature Today." The poet Shin Kyeong-nim, novelists Kim Won-il and Lee Mun-yoel, literary critic Kim Ju-yeon participated in the symposium. The Korean PEN Center announced the recipient of its translation award this spring. The 33rd PEN Translation Prize was awarded to Kim cheong-un, tormer President of Seoul National University, for his English translation of Chae Man-sik's "A Ready-Made Life." Farmers' Dance, selected poems of Shin Kyong-nim translated into English by Brother Anthony of Taize and Professor Kim Yoeng-mu, was published by Dap Gae Publishing Company. Lee Mun-yoel's "Our Twisted Hero" and Kim Kwang-kyu's "The Depths of a Shell" have been published in German by Pendragon, one of the most prestigious publishing houses in Germany. The Prophet and Other Stories, selected short stories of Lee Cheong-jun, was published by the Cornell East Asia Program. This season, in the field of Korean calligraphy, various events were held to provide the public, both domestic and foreign, with a new opportunity to deepen their understanding of and affection for the art of calligraphy. An exhibition surveying the artistic world of calligrapher Joeng Do-jun is being held in Germany, the first time for a Korean calligrapher to hold a solo exhibition in a Western nation. Another meaningful event was the Second Biennial World Calligraphy Exhibition held in Joenju, North Jeolla Province from June 1 to June 30. In total over eighty one calligraphers from eighteen countries are participating in this international calligraphy exhibition. "Seoul Opera Festival '99" was held at the Seoul Arts Center's Opera House and Towol Theater from May 20 to June 4. The festival staged Yun Isang's monumental opera Simjeong for the first time in Korea, twenty-seven years after its world premiere on the eve of the Munich Olympic Games. Paek Byeong-dong's Shining Love and British composer Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas were also featured in the festival. The Third Annual Suwon Hwaseong Fortress International Theater Festival was held in Suwon from May 28 to June 5. It accommodated diverse performances of theatre, dance, and other stage art genres including Rumania's National Theater of Bucharest, Poland's Theater Cogitatur, England's juggling team Gandini, Czech Republic's Continuo, Ireland's Pan Pan Troupe, and Japan's Pappa Tarahumara.

Lee Bo※l, Kim Su-ja, and No Sang-kyuon are representing Korea in the 48th Venice Biennale, held from June 13 to November 7 with the theme of "Aperto over All." Lee Bo※l, an installation and performance artist, was selected as the recipient of the Special Citation at the biennale for her work Gravity Greater than Velocity. In Essen, Germany, a special exhibition titled "Korea the Old Kingdom: In Search of the Essence of Korean Spirit" is being held at the Villa Huegel, Germany's major private museum. It sheds light on the one-thousand-five-hundred-year history of nation's artifacts featuring ancient Korean paintings, sculpture, ceramics, and ornaments.

The Picnic directed by Soeng Il-go※n, a Korean short film about a family planning to commit group suicide, won the Jury Prize in the short film category of the 52nd Cannes Film Festival on May 23 and becomes the first Korean film ever to win a prize at Cannes. Along with The Picnic, three other Korean films, An Eternity by Kim Dae-hyeon, Simultaneity by Kim Seong-suk, and The Execution by Lee In-kyoeng participated in the festival's short film competition. An Affair directed by Lee Jae-yeong, a Korean melodrama about forbidden love between a woman and her would-be brother-in-law, won the Best Asian Film Award at the Newport Beach International Film Festival in Los Angeles. The Second Women's Film Festival in Seoul was held from April 16 to 23 at the Dongsung Art Center. Under the theme of "Viewing the World through Women's Eyes," the festival showcased 52 feature-length and short films. Among the five categories of the festival, the "New Currents" section received the most enthusiastic reaction from the audience by introducing nine recent films by women directors including Lee Whitmore's On A Full Moon, Nanako Kurihara's Ripples of Change, and Carine Adler's Under the Skin.

Kye J※ong-meenKeimyung University, Taegu