To Sleep and To Wake Up / To Stay and To Decay
Yoon Nam was born and reared in Korea. She holds a Ph.D. in 16-17th century English literature, is a DJ and loves records, and also draws and paints. As a self-taught and multi-disciplinary artist, she writes when she can’t paint, and paints when not writing, though her visions, whether non-literal, conceptual, or verbal, often interact and inform each other. She lived in South Korea for the first two decades of her life, and Korean is her native language. She currently composes works in both English and Korean. Though she finds the exceptional qualities of each language rewarding to explore, she feels writing in—and returning to--her mother tongue is a must in order to fight the increasing cultural alienation she has experienced as an immigrant resident of the United States. She lives in Atlanta with her partner Bobby, a beautiful cat named Reginald, a sweet cat named Spicy, and a very long, sinewy tuxedo cat named Televisión.