Breath of a New Day: Kyu-Hong Choe's Latest Work Drawing Global Attention to a Vanishing Korean Community

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Korean author and historian Kyu-Hong Choe introduces Breath of a New Day, his latest nonfiction work from Jinyoung Publishing, which is drawing growing interest from readers in Korea and abroad for its intimate portrayal of a vanishing rural community.

The book revisits the symbolic villages of Sulsan, Gyesan, and Jusan, places celebrated for centuries in local legends and classical verse. Drawing on his own childhood, Choe transforms personal memories into a carefully crafted historical narrative that evokes the vast golden fields of the Honam Plain, the enduring village belief in auspicious landforms, and vivid episodes from his youth, such as the day outsiders wandering the mountains with compasses stirred both curiosity and suspicion among local children. One of the book's most poignant sections recounts the sudden erasure of Juisan Village, which disappeared overnight during the construction of a major expressway embankment - a moment that captures the irreversible loss still confronting many rural communities.

Choe also situates Impi within a wider historical frame by weaving in the work of Joogbong, a 16th-century Joseon scholar whose poems portray the pastoral beauty of the region. By bridging past and present, he depicts those who preserved the region's spirit as "lighthouses guiding future generations toward a new dawn," underscoring the book's central theme of carrying local memory forward.

As a longtime educator, Choe served as Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Full Professor, and later Professor Emeritus at Kunjang University College, building his career on the documentation and interpretation of historical sources. Beyond academia, he has devoted his efforts to honoring Korea's independence activists, conducting years of research to uncover evidence related to 16 previously unrecognized participants in the Okgu Peasant Anti-Japanese Resistance Movement and helping secure official state honors for all of them. In recognition of this work, he received the Order of Civil Merit from the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs.

Published with support from the Jeonbuk Special Self-Governing Province Cultural Foundation, Breath of a New Day offers a heartfelt and rigorously documented portrait of a community on the brink of disappearance. The book will appeal to readers interested in local history, cultural heritage, and the meaning of memory in an era of rapid social change, and is now available through major online and offline bookstores across Korea.

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