South Korea's capital has closed an exhibition by poet Ko Un, long the country's hope for a Nobel Prize in literature, amid allegations of sexual misconduct and the government is considering removing his work from textbooks.
Ko Un, 84, who denied any "habitual misconduct" in a statement made through his British publisher, first faced allegations when fellow South Korean poet Choi Young-mi released a poem in December titled "Monster," which describes harassment by an older male poet named "En."
South Koreans have widely interpreted it to refer to Ko, seizing on passages that match his biography, including references to the buzz surrounding the unnamed poet's Nobel Prize chances.