He graduated from Yonsei University’s Department of Korean Language and Literature and received his Ph.D. from the same graduate school. He was a researcher at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and is currently a university lecturer and translator. He is the author of The Renaissance Man Kim Seung-ok (co-author), and the translator of I Am a Cat, The Heart, The Light of Illusion, Story of the Crusades, Cut Off, Those Praying Hands, The Birth of Form, We All Return Home, and other books. He won the Korea Publishing Culture Award (Translation) for the complete works of Natsume Soseki.