Ha Song-nan

Ha Seong-nan (; born 28 June 1967) is a South Korean writer.

Biography Ha was born in Seoul. She is the oldest of three children and this position resulted in her often taking on the role of a son. Ha wrote through elementary and middle school, with limited success, but began writing short stories in high-school and winning school prizes for them. After graduating from high school Ha worked in a wood-importing firm and entered the Department of Creative Writing at the Seoul Institute of Arts in 1990. After graduation she worked for Moonji Publishing. as well as the Hyeondae Literary Award for her story "Alpha's Time." She has also received the Yisu Literary Award the Hankook Ilbo Literary Award, and the Dongin Literary Award.

In 2007, Ha had her second child, a son, and she currently lives in Mapo, Seoul. In recent years, Ha has shown greater interest in social issues. The First Wife of Blue Beard is a collection of short stories each revolving around a tragic, but familiar incident that could easily appear on the pages of a local newspaper. In the title story modeled after Perrault’s Le Barbe Bleue, a woman who marries a Korean living in New Zealand learns about her husband’s homosexuality; “Flies” portrays a small town policeman’s descent into madness. In Ha’s fiction, such incidents as murder, fire, and robbery are treated without sensationalism: she uses those life-shattering moments in life to underscore fragility of happiness as well as the sense of emptiness that lies at the core of existence. In Waxen Wings: The Acta Korean Anthology of Short Fiction from Korea (1999). "Traversing Afternoon". In Bi-lingual Edition Modern Korean Literature, Vol. 32 (2013). "The Star-Shaped Stain". In The Malahat Review, Issue 188 (2014). "Joy to the World". In Ricepaper 20.4 (2016). "Pinky Finger". In The New Quarterly, Issue 143 (2017). "Early Beans". In Korean Literature Now, Vol. 37 (2017). "Bluebeard's First Wife". In Asymptote'' (2018).

Awards Dong-in Literary Award (1999 - "Flowers of Mold") Hankook Ilbo Literary Award (2000 - "Joy to the World") Isu Literary Award (2004) Oh Yeong-su Literary Award (2008) Contemporary Literature (Hyundae Munhak) Award (2009)