Hailji was born in 1955 and graduated from Jungang University with a degree in Creative Writing. He then taught high school until 1983, when he left South Korea for France. In France he earned an M.A. from Poitiers University and a Ph.D. from University of Limoges. He returned to South Korea in 1989. His career as an author began with the publication of his controversial, The Road to Racetracks. Many of his works have been made into movies or plays. As such, Ha is also credited as an important contributor to the development of modern Korean cinema.
Hailji's first book, 'The Road to Racetracks brought him immediate fame as well as a share of notoriety. The novel centers on an intellectual who has just returned from France and portrays the gradual crumbling of his world—both internal and external—as he struggles with hypocritical standards and conservative values of the Korean society.
Many of his works have been made into movies or plays. As such, Ha is also credited as an important contributor to the development of modern South Korean cinema. In 1993, he published a ciné-romans entitled Mano Cabina Remembered. Ha is also active as a poet. A volume of his English poems, Blue Meditation of the Clocks, was published in the U.S. in 1994, and in 2003, his French poems were published in Paris under the title Les Hirondelles dans mon tiroir. He may be the only writer in Korea who has written and published his works in many different languages
