Born in Seoul in 1970, Shim Bo-seon received a B.A. and M.A. in sociology from Seoul National University and a Ph.D. from Columbia University.  He made his literary debut in 1994, when he won the Chosun-ilbo Spring Literary Contest for his poem, ¡°Scenery.¡±  A member of the poetry collective, ¡°The Twenty-first Century Perspective,¡± he published the poetry collection entitled Fifteen Seconds Without Sadness.