Chung Hae-Ok (born 1960) is a Korean-language court interpreter, translator, and poet and a second-generation Korean resident of Japan, born in Kawasaki. She graduated from Seoul National University in 1984 with a degree in Korean history. Registered on the Osaka High Court’s list of interpreter candidates in 1992, she has worked primarily in the Kansai region, interpreting court proceedings and consultations between defendants and their lawyers. Her book Hotei Tsuyakunin draws on this experience to portray the people, emotions, and difficult choices of wording encountered in court. In Hotei Tsuyakunin no Sekai, she broadens that perspective through interviews with interpreters working in other languages and members of the legal profession, examining the work of assisting people who face trial in an unfamiliar language. Her literary activities also include poetry and translations of Korean literature. In “Shi o Tomoshi No ni Yuku,” she selected and translated works from eight collections by Choi Young-mi, whom she met at university, arranging them around seven themes including love, struggle, and solitude. Alongside interpreting in court, her literary work brings a poet’s experiences and critical view of society to Japanese-language readers.
