(REPLACEMENT) Ahn Jung-geun, ardent advocate of immortal values: author Lee Moon-yul

(ATTN: This article replaces an earlier story moved at 6:00 p.m. Wednesday and
slugged "Ahn Jung-geun-book" to correct the information on the place of Ahn's
execution in 3rd and 5th paras. Please be advised to use this story.)
By Oh Seok-min

SEOUL Feb.3 (Yonhap) -- "Patriot Ahn Jung-geun firmly believed that the
fatherland was none other than a noble feeling and ideal, and his love toward the
country and the people was a form of his existence. He willingly sacrificed
himself for the immortal values."
South Korean author Lee Moon-yul's newly published book in Korean, titled
"Bulmyeol" (Immortality), describes the life of Ahn Jung-geun, the Korean
independence fighter who resisted Japanese colonial rule.
Ahn was executed at age 32 at Luishun Prison in the port of Dalian, China, on
March 26, 1910, five months after he assassinated the resident-general of Japan's
colonial government in Korea, Hirobumi Ito in Harbin, a city in China's
Heilongjiang Province. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Ahn's death.
During a press conference Tuesday at Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in
downtown Seoul to release his new book, the 62-year-old author said that in 2005,
he turned down a request to write a scenario for a musical on the patriot.
Instead, he decided to write a novel on Ahn for a daily newspaper.
"Bulmyeol" describes Ahn's life from 1894, when he was 16 years old, until the
moment of his execution for the assassination he had committed in 1909.
"Though my original intention was to focus on his distinguished character and
make up details about him, the completed work became more like a critical
biography, as he is not a figure to be easily dramatized at my discretion," said
Lee.
The author said he kept his focus on "Ahn's dedication to the noble values he
believed in."
"I brought up the abstract concept of immortality, as picking up one single image
among various ones describing Ahn -- from an assassin all the way to a hero --
was not enough," he said. "He chose to become immortal for the values he thought
noble and that he existed for."
Writing for a year, Lee felt he could not use the word "humane" to describe Ahn's
private life because he could not find enough information. He said that in the
400-page long autobiographical record Ahn left behind before his death, he wrote
only 10 lines about his wife. "So it was very difficult to find any 'humane'
aspect of him," he said.
The new book is the author's first work written on the domestic matters since he
published "Homo Executans" thee years ago, which criticized some left-leaning
politicians.
graceoh@yna.co.kr
(END)