Korea, which is only the size of Kansas, has at times played a major role on the world stage. Few Americans are familiar with its history, but the new winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is something of a legend there, and the prize may help bring together a country split in half for more than half a century. PNS editor Katherine Cowy Kim is a Bay Area freelance writer and works with YO! Youth Outlook.

Over the past week, since South Korean president Kim Dae Jung was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, I asked friends and strangers alike one question: Do you know who Kim Dae Jung is?

Most people had no idea who I was talking about--their only answer was a blank expression, a shake of the head, or eyes sauntering off in the distance.

"Kim who?" a colleague asked. "Does she work in the office?"

The few who knew that Kim was a Korean leader could not confidently say whether he hailed from the North or the South.

My first encounter with Kim Dae Jung was five years ago, in a hospital in southern Seoul, as I was walking in to do an interview. He was walking out of the room of a young man who had been trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building. Amid white-capped nurses with clipboards and a frenzy of flowers, I brushed by him, a nondescript Korean man in a suit, stoic, his slicked back.

"Did you see him?" my translator hissed into my ear. "That's Kim Dae Jung!"

At the time, the name meant nothing to me. The incumbent president was a Kim, my boss was a Kim, I am a Kim. But as she explained the history of this particular Kim--opposition leader, political prisoner, fighter for democracy--I realized that he was a moral, even a noble, man, his life story a contemporary Korean legend.

Kim still walks with a limp, an injury received during a failed assassination attempt during his first run for the presidency in 1971. Two years later, agents of the South Korean Central Intelligence Agency kidnapped him and took him out to sea to be drowned, but his life was spared at the last minute. In 1980, he was arrested and sentenced to be hanged, but again the death sentence was interrupted. On hearing of the award, Kim asked that the glory be shared with fellow Koreans who had "sacrificed for and were dedicated to peace and democracy."

Kim is still a controversial character, either passionately loved or reviled. Elders (generations in Korea are divided between those with memories of the war, and those without) are particularly split over Kim. Because he has dedicated over 40 years to reconciliation and cooperation between the two Koreas, Kim was often painted as a Communist sympathizer. Through Korea's Cold-War eyes, it is an image hard to shake--harder even to accept.

But when news of the Nobel broke in Korea, fireworks sparkled and flowers were freely distributed. Happiness was the prevailing emotion, surpassing even traditional Korean pride. "I'm happy," my mother gushed. "He's the first Korean to win a Nobel."

I can imagine the pomp of the ceremony at the Kyobo Bookstore in downtown Seoul, where a large replica of the Nobel Prize has hung in a display case for years, waiting to be replaced by a photo of the nation's first winner.

Plans for a Nobel Park in Kim's birthplace are already under way. Hand in hand with the 2002 World Cup, the Nobel takes Korea out of its IMF-bailout shame.

Over his dramatic career, Kim Dae Jung has been nominated for the award 14 times. The Nobel Committee did not include his partner-in-talks, North Korean President Kim Jong Il. This seemed a glaring slight (last year's prize went to both sides in the Northern Ireland talks, 1994's to the tripartite Middle East peace brokers), but the other Kim's hermetic and unpredictable reputation--and shaky human rights record--disqualified him.

Kim's presidency has been dedicated to his "Sunshine Policy" with the north. With the historical summit meeting in June and at least symbolic attempts at warmth that followed--family reunions, inter-Korean railway, Korean athletes marching under one flag in Sydney-- his single-minded reunification vision remains steadfast.

It is impossible to know whether the Nobel Peace Prize will bring peace to Korea. It is clear that it will draw much more international attention to the ongoing conflict (the two countries are still officially at war) and this can only help accelerate current moves toward one Korea.

Kim Dae Jung keeps on his desk a prized gift that he received upon his election to the presidency: a wristwatch from Nelson Mandela, one that the South African president wore during his years in prison. Indeed, there are so many similarities in the lives of the two men that those who know who Kim calls him "the Nelson Mandela of Asia."

I want Kim Dae Jung to be known not only by fellow Koreans or international policy chiefs, but by as many people as recognize Mandela.

I hope he will be credited with Korea's reunification, but that may not come to pass quickly.