Hwang In-suk was born in Seoul in 1958 and graduated from the Seoul Institute of Arts with a degree in Creative Writing. She made her literary debut in 1984 with her poem I Will Be Born as a Cat winning the annual spring literary contest by Kyunghyang Shinmun. Collections of Poetry created by Hwang Insook include Birds Freely Fly across the Sky, The Sorrow Wakes Me Up, We Met like a Pair of Migratory Birds, Dear My Gloomy and Precious, An Obvious Walk, and A Night Train to Lisbon. Because I Have Not Loved To My Heart’s Content, An Evening on Any Day. Her books of essays are In-suk Rambling, Things the Narrow Alley Held, Cats of Haebangchon, and The Racing, Three Cats. She has received the East West Literary Award in 1999 and the Kim Sooyoung Literary Award in 2004.