Background
Kim was born in Seoul in 1941 and studied German language and literature at Seoul National University.
Kim was born in Seoul in 1941 and studied German language and literature at Seoul National University.
He later studied for two years in Munich 1972-1974.
Early in his university career, he participated in the demonstrations of the April Revolution that was repressed by a massacre on April 19, 1960, leading to the fall of President Syngman Rhee. However, he did not begin writing poetry until his return from Germany in his mid-thirties. He has been working as a professor in the German department of Hanyang University (Seoul) since 1980.
He has published translations of 19th century German poems (1980), of poems by Bertolt Brecht (1985), of radio dramas by Günter Eich (1986), and of poems by Günter Eich (1987).
