Kim San

Kim San was a socialist revolutionary and Korean independence fighter. His real name was known as Jang Jihak according to Nym Wales, or Jang Jirak according to Japanese authorities' documents. Born in Korea in the early 20th century, witnessing and experiencing the oppression and miseries made by Japanese colonial authorities, he participated in the Korean Independence Movement and the Chinese Communist Revolution moving throughout such areas as Korea, Japan, Manchuria, Shanghai, Beijing and Guangdong. He was also fluent in many languages such as Japanese, Chinese, English and Esperanto. He was executed in China in 1938, but his life and activities were known by the 1941 publication of a book titled Song of Ariran written by journalist Nym Wales based on her interviews with him in Yan'an, China in 1937. That book was also translated in Japanese first in 1953 and in Korean first in 1984.