Born in 1950 in Hadong, Gyeongsangnam-do, Jeong Ho-seung was raised in the city of Daegu and received his bachelor's and master's degree from the Department of Korean Language and Literature at Kyunghee University in Seoul. He won the poetry prizes in the 1972 Hankook Ilbo New Spring Literary Contest and the 1973 Daehan Daily New Spring Literary Contest, and the short-story prize in the 1982 Chosun Ilbo New Spring Literary Contest, and was active in the "Anti-Poetry" literary group. His poetry collections include From Sorrow to Joy, Seoul's Jesus, Dawn Letter, Stars Are Warm, Love Then Die, To Be Lonely Is to Be Human, Take a Train When the Tears Fall, In This Short While, An Embrace, Earning My Keep, Travels, I Refuse Hope, and In Search of You. He also released the poetry anthologies An Unshakable Reed, The People I Love, and To Daffodils; Korean-English bilingual poetry collections A Letter Not Sent and Though Flowers Fall I Have Never Forgotten You; and the essay collections Words That Have Given Me Strength, Words That Have Given Me Courage, and Without You, There is No Me, among others. The storybooks for adults Loving and Lonesome Jar: Poetic Fables have been translated into English, German, Chinese, and Vietnamese; and his poetry collections have been translated into Japanese, Spanish, Russian, Georgian, and Mongolian. Jeong's accolades include the So-Wol Literary Prize, the Jeong Ji-young Literary Prize, the Pyeonun Literary Prize, the Catholic Literary Award, the Sanghwa Poetry Award, and the Gongcho Literary Prize.
