Who are Koreans¡¯ favorite writers?

Koreans¡¯ favorite Korean writer is Yi Mun-Yol, while their best-loved foreign novelist is Sydney Sheldon.

Modern novels are Koreans¡¯ favorite literary genre, a survey conducted by Korea Gallup showed Tuesday. The polling agency questioned a total of 1,605 men and women over the age of 18 about their reading habits over the past month.

The survey showed that Koreans¡¯ reading volume is continuously increasing despite the fact that they live in the digital era.

In a survey on the volume of reading over the past month, those who read more than one book rose to 44.6 percent from 32 percent in 1989, 39 percent in 1991 and 43.8 percent in 1996.

The average number of books Koreans read per month was 1.59 and they bought an average of 0.9 books per month. About 4.7 percent of those surveyed read more than six books per month.

Classified by age, students read the most, with 4.35 books on average a month, followed by white-collar workers, who read 1.85 books.

Modern novels are the most loved genre of Koreans, but those over 50 prefer works on philosophy and religion, according to the survey.

The most popular literary figures are novelist Yi Mun-Yol (8.5 percent), followed by poet Kim So-Wol, novelist Hwang Sun-Won, novelist Kim Jin-Myung, poet Yoon Dong-Ju, novelist Park Kyung-Ri, novelist Yang Gui-Ja, poet Lee Hae-In, novelist Hwang Suk-Young and novelist Choi In-Ho, in that order.

As for foreign writers, Koreans like Sydney Sheldon (5.3 percent) most, followed by Herman Hesse, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Pearl Buck, Shakespeare, Haruki Murakami, Robin Cook, Goethe and Agatha Christie in that order.