Ku Sang was born in Seoul in 1919 but grew up in what is now North Korea. After studying in Japan, he returned and began to work as a journalist. He was forced ot flee to the southern part of Korea before the Korean War; for many years he was an editor and columnist in one of the major Korean newspapers.

He has published many volumes of poems and essays, has written a number of plays, and been a teacher at university.

Ku Sang is one of Korea's most respected senior writers and has received numerous major awards for his work.

This book with collected poems contains the two cycles »Christopher' River« and »Diary of the Fields«, in with the author reflects on the experience of time: linear and unreturning in the image of the river, cyclical like the seasons in the image of the fields. These cycles are designed to read together, each poem leading from personal experience to a more general reflection.

The third part, »Infant Splendor«, was originally published with paintings by the Zen artist Jung Kwang. In poems and paintings both tried to portray the »mind of childlike innocence«, the condition of someone who has reached purity of heart by achieving mastery over himself.

Poems at the meeting-point of the Oriental and the Western, the Christian and the Buddhist.

This poetry is like the man: humble in its simplicity, rich in philosophy!

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