Lee Jangwook was born in Seoul in 1968 and received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Russian language and literature at Korea University. He began his literary career by publishing poems in Hyundae Munhak in 1994, and in 2005 he received the 3rd Munhak Sucheop Writers’ Award. His works include the poetry collections The Sand Hill in My Sleep, The Song Request at Noon; a collection of literary criticism, Revolution and Modernism; the full-length novels, Cheerful Devils of Callot, Stranger Than Paradise, and The Carol; and the short story collections, The King of Confessions, Everything That’s Not a Giraffe, and April March’s Love. 

He received the 1st Webzine Moonji Literary Award in 2011 for the short story, “Kokran.” He also received the Moonji Literary Award, the Kim Yu-Jeong Literary Award, and the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 6th Young Writer’s Award. He is currently an editor for The Quarterly Changbi, and after his post as a professor in the Department of Creative Writing at Chosun University (2008-2014), has been a professor in the Department of Creative Writing at Dongguk University (since 2014).