Written by Kwon Jung Saeng and illustrated by Kim Hwan Young


‘Corn’ is a poem written by the writer, Kwon, Jung Saeng (1937-2007), who devoted his life to small and weak people, at the age of 13 when he was on the run leaving his hometown during the Korean War in 1950. The illustrator, Kim, Hwan Young, brought out the memory of the war, which broke a small village 65 years ago, through the peace picture book to ‘hope for the world without wars’. The illustrator described the sadness and sorrow of a boy who cared about corns while lying down under the cold night sky inside his two round eyes. “When mom and dad think of hometown under the night stars / I think of corns at the corner of our town.”
Corns in the boy’s heart grow well under the starry night sky. The trees protecting the wall where corns grow were already burnt out by the fire during the war, but the boy still thinks of corns. “By now, corns would have corn silk, and their kernels would ripe.”