MY GYEONGJU (SOUTH KOREA) PHOTOGRAPH MEMOIR

About the Book

Gyeongju, now a mid-sized modern city in the Republic of Korea (South Korea), was 1,400 years ago the capital of the Silla Kingdom. From 57 BCE to 935 CE, Gyeongju was the cultural, religious and administrative capital of a unified Korean state and the first true capital of Korea up to that time. In that ancient period, Gyeongju was three to five times larger than it is today. Filled with palaces, Buddhist temples and monuments, only a few remnants remain of the Silla Kingdom today. Nevertheless, those few historic sites are an impressive window into what the Silla era was like. The author visited these beautiful places to understand something about this part of Korean history. This work examines the five significant places in Gyeongju that bespeak of this city’s rich cultural and historic past as the former capital of ancient Korea.

About the Author

Daniel Nardini was born in Bloomington, Illinois, and raised in Elmhurst, Illinois. He graduated from Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin, in 1983, with a Bachelor’s degree in anthropology and history, and from Western Illinois University in Macomb in 1986 with a Master’s degree in European and Asian History. Nardini taught English as a foreign language in Taiwan from 1990 to 1994, and in South Korea from 1996 to 1997. Nardini worked for Lawndale News in Cicero, Illinois, from 1994 to 2014, and for the Fulton Journal in Fulton, Illinois, from 2018 to 2020. Nardini has written nine previous books. They are; South Korea: Our Story; The Day China Cried: A Witness to the June 4th Massacre; My Taiwan, Seoul, and Guadalajara (Mexico) Memoirs; My Italian American Family, Rural Taiwan, and Lawndale News Memoirs; My South Korea Photograph Memoir; My Taiwan Photograph Memoir; More Lawndale News Memoirs; A Taoist in Rural Illinois; and My Seoul (South Korea) Local Buddhist Temples Photograph Memoir. Nardini is now retired and lives with his wife Jade in Chadwick, Illinois.