Lee Hyo-seok, the literary genius Pyeongchang gave to the world, built the emotional core of his novel "When Buckwheat Flowers Bloom" around a single, unforgettable image: a watermill and a breathtaking night.
Heo Saeng-won, the story's aging peddler, has no idea that a chance encounter at a mill years ago produced a son. When a sturdy young man named Dong-i hoists him onto his back to carry him across a stream, Heo feels an inexplicable warmth radiating from those broad shoulders — and the puzzle pieces of fate, assembled from a few casual questions exchanged at a market long ago, begin to fall into place.
The buckwheat fields under the moonlight looked as though someone had scattered salt across the earth, and that haunting beauty stirs something deep and long-buried in Heo's chest — memories of Bongpyeong he had kept locked away for decades.
As the secret of Dong-i's birth slowly comes into focus and the young man announces he is heading to where his mother lives, Heo abruptly changes his own destination without a second thought.
Heo Saeng-won may be the protagonist, but it is Dong-i's origin and the unfolding life of a 20-year-old that truly propel "When Buckwheat Flowers Bloom" forward. With its deeply moving storyline and vivid portraits of Gangwon Province's pastoral landscape, the novel was, by any measure, worthy of the Nobel Prize.
The love that turned coincidence into destiny — and the only intimate scene in the novel — Lee rendered in just four syllables of restrained Korean: "a breathtaking night."
Pyeongchang-gun is now inviting the public to step inside the world of that novel.
The 2026 Pyeongchang Hyoseok Cultural Festival will be held for 10 days, from Sept. 4 through Sept. 13, in and around Hyoseok Culture Village in Bongpyeong-myeon — a landscape blanketed in white buckwheat blossoms.
Designated an honorary cultural tourism festival by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the event offers visitors a chance to escape the grind of daily life, walk and reflect among snow-white buckwheat fields, and find rest and renewal.
This year's festival grounds are organized into three distinct zones.
Zone 1, the "Culture and Arts Yard," evokes the scenery of the novel through the buckwheat fields and the Lee Hyo-seok Literature Museum, offering literary immersion and quiet relaxation. Activities include a 100-ri trail walk with author Song Il-bong, a guided literary stroll, and a book concert featuring a winner of the Lee Hyo-seok Literary Award.
Zone 2, the "Experience Yard," is an interactive space for all ages designed to soothe weary spirits. Visitors can cross traditional brushwood and stone bridges, follow the route of a wandering market peddler, sit by a bonfire of fallen leaves, write love postcards to music, hunt for a golden buckwheat stalk hidden among the flowers, ride a literary train, and collect stamps along a tour route.
Zone 3, the "Festival Yard," brings the novel's marketplace to life through performance and tradition — folk performances, open-air theater, street parades, rice-cake pounding, a five-day market, and local food that engage all five senses.
This year, Pyeongchang-gun will open the Lee Hyo-seok Literature Museum and Moonlight Hill free of charge throughout the festival, linking the festival grounds and cultural spaces so that visitors can experience the entire area as one integrated cultural and arts destination.
The viewing paths through the main buckwheat fields have also been redesigned to be more comfortable and charming, allowing visitors to fully savor the lyrical landscape at the heart of the novel.
Kwak Dal-gyu, chairman of the Lee Hyo-seok Literary Promotion Society, said the Hyoseok Cultural Festival is "a representative autumn festival of sentiment in Korea, where nature and literature come together." He added that he hoped visitors would "heal their tired bodies and minds amid buckwheat blossoms, starlight and moonlight, enjoying literature, entertainment and local food — and find in the experience a moment of leisure and happiness in their busy lives."
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