Lee Geum-yi was born in 1962 in Cheongwon County, North Chungcheong Province, and raised in Seoul. As a child, she fell in love with the power of stories through her grandmother, a storyteller in her own right, and through other means such as radio dramas. Once Lee started school, as she read manhwa books and the children’s editions of the classics of world literature, she began to dream of becoming a writer. She launched her literary career in 1984, during a period of emergence for Korean children’s literature, and she has since published more than 50 books. For over 40 years, she has led the growth of children’s literature and the birth and expansion of young adult literature, capturing the hearts of readers and critics both young and old with her works. She has won the Sochun Literary Award, the Yun Seok-jung Literary Award, and the Korean Culture and Arts Award, among others, and in 2024 she was shortlisted for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in the author category. Her work has been published in translation in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, China, Japan, Russia, Egypt, Vietnam, and Taiwan.
