강헌

✦ About

Born in Busan in 1962, he graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in Korean Language and Literature and later studied musicology in the same university's graduate school. He participated in the production of independent film collective Jangsangotmae's *Oh! Land of Dreams* and began his career as a popular music critic in 1991 with the review *A Study of Kim Hyun-sik*, a role he has maintained for nearly 25 years. He was involved in producing cultural magazines *Sangsang* and *Review*, and produced a tribute album for the band Deulgukhwa and a memorial album for former President Roh Moo-hyun. In 2019, he served as CEO of the Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation. Around 2003, at age 43, he suffered a severe aortic dissection, fell into a coma, and was declared dead before miraculously waking up. During high school, a friend's father, a Mingli scholar, had warned him of danger at age 43. When this prediction came true, he began studying Mingli himself. His 2015 book *Mingli: Reading Destiny*, which recounts this experience, sold out its first print run within two weeks and became a steady seller with over 30,000 copies sold. He has also published *Moments of Subversion and Reversal*, *Reading Koreans*, and co-authored with novelist Seo Ja-young *Praise of Life* (2022), a full-length novel about the life of Yun Sim-deok. He continues to give lectures on "Leftist Mingli" at Café Bunker 1 in Seogyo-dong, Seoul, and hosted the podcast *Kang Heon's Radio Leftist Mingli*. Currently, he serves as CEO of the Mingli education platform Cheolgongso.com (K-Fortune), offering humanities courses and online content. He has appeared on TV programs such as tvN's *Suddenly an Adult* to introduce Mingli to the public, conveying the message that "Mingli is not a tool for divining fate, but a reference book for changing one's own life."