Born in 1958 in Gwangju, Hwang Gwang-u was confined and expelled from high school for leading an anti-dictatorship demonstration. After passing the qualification examination for college entrance, he entered Seoul National University in 1977 and read classics. Although he was brought to a military trial in 1978 for complicity in a demonstration jointly organized by students at six universities in Seoul but paroled in the following year and living in his hometown when President Park Chung Hee was assassinated. During the “Spring of Seoul” in 1980, Hwang was expelled for violation of martial law while serving as the head of the Social Bureau in the Student Council of Seoul National University. In 1983, he established People’s Church in the Sillim-dong district of Seoul and ran free night classes for working and underprivileged youths and joined Gyeongdong Industrial Co. in Incheon and began his life as a laborer in the following year. He also was the head of the Education Bureau in the Incheon Area Workers’ League.
Published under the penname “Jeong’in” during military dictatorships, In Search of the Roots of Alienated Lives, Hearken to the Cry of History, and Those Who Bear Rafts gained public attention by presenting the right path for those who were concerned with the state of Korean society. He founded the monthly Those in Search of a Path in 1991 and has co-authored, authored, and translated numerous books including Truth Is My Light (7 vols.), For the Reds: A New Reading of the Communist Manifesto, and Philosophy Concert.
Since his belated graduation from the Department of Economics at Seoul National University in 1998, he teaches Korean classics at Dasan Private Institute in Gwangju and heads Mokmin Essay Writing Center in Incheon.
