Lee Jae-Eui

Lee Jae-Eui is a South Korean journalist and activist whose documentary account Kwangju Diary: Beyond Death, Beyond the Darkness of the Age (1985) was a crucial and courageous act of witness — the first detailed account of the Gwangju Uprising of May 1980, in which pro-democracy demonstrators were massacred by South Korean military forces. Written and circulated under conditions of extreme political danger, it was one of the most important political texts of the Korean democracy movement.

The book was banned in South Korea for years and circulated in underground editions. Its eventual publication and recognition helped establish the Gwangju Uprising — known now as the May 18th Democratic Uprising — as a foundational moment in Korean democratic history.