Choi In-hun (1936–2018) was born in Hoeryŏng city in North Hamgyŏng Province, a region that now forms part of North Korea. When the Korean War broke out, he fled with his family to South Korea. In 1952, Choi entered Seoul National University as a law major, but dropped out in 1956. From 1958 to 1963, he served as an interpreting officer in the South Korean army; and it was during this time in the military that he started to publish his stories. The Square (1960 in Korean, 2014 in English), the first work to earn him fame as a writer, was published during this period. This novella, which was first serialised in the Korean literary magazine Saebyŏk (Dawn) in November 1960, received general critical acclaim. Critics praised him for his scathing critique of the social realities of both the Communist and the democratic regimes that were then ruling a divided Korean peninsula. Choi expanded the story into a full-length novel, revising it as much as ten times.