Between anxiety and celebration: resident Korean writers and the Japanese literary canon (original) (raw)
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This paper explores the representation of Resident Korean writers within the Japanese literary canon, focusing on the social, political, and economic contexts that influence their recognition. It critically examines the processes of exclusion and tokenism in the awarding of literary prizes to these authors, arguing for a nuanced understanding of literary canons as shaped not only by aesthetic values but by the circumstances of literary production and reception. The discussion emphasizes the evolving status of these writers and the potential for genuine inclusion in the canon.
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Korean Literature Now, 2019
The canonization of literary classics is a complex process that is not necessarily based solely on aesthetic excellence; it can also be led by ideological interests. Depending on which set of criteria we use to define literary classics, we find that there are various canons of “classics” and that these sets are themselves dynamic. I personally appreciate the idea of a literary canon based on pure aesthetic excellence, and I do not want to deny the intrinsic literary quality of certain texts. In a time like ours, where the commercialization of literature as munhwa kontencheu (“culture contents”) seems to be in full swing, the discussion about how to define literary quality seems to be more important than ever. In this essay, I want to explore another approach to question the established canon: taking the popularity of a story in Korea as criterion for defining Korean literary classics. By that criterion, I will argue that The Journey to the West (Seoyugi) is more a Korean classic than New Tales of the Golden Turtle (Geumo Sinhwa).
Korean literary critics and authors active in the 1930s evoked a sense of crisis and despair about the state of Korean literature. The financial foundations of Korean literary production throughout most of the early colonial period were tenuous, and there was a strong sense that colonial readers were indifferent to Korean literature or had a strong preference for foreign literature. By the late 1930s, however, the state of literary production in colonial Korea had changed dramatically. Professional writers were able to make a living from their manuscripts, and the volume of literary output reached unprecedented levels. Significant capital flowed into cultural production, and Korean authors increasingly participated in a transnational literary field that stretched throughout the Japanese Empire. Yet just as the market for Korean literary works achieved capitalist levels of production, the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 triggered wartime controls of the publication industry. During this last phase of the colonial order, Korean writers began to reconceptualize Korean literature into National Literature, which was written in Japanese and intended for an expansive audience that resided throughout the Japanese empire. The literary history of late colonial period would ultimately raise fundamental questions about what constituted Korean literature and literary authorship within the rapidly expanding transnational media market of the Japanese Empire. This article examines this complex relationship between the dynamics of literary markets and changing conceptions of Korean literature during the colonial period.
"The Politicality of Modern Japan: Korea Editions' Use of Korean Literature"
International Journal of Korean History, 2022
The omnibus monthly magazine Modern Japan (Modan Nippon), launched by Bungei Shunju in October of 1930, featured a special extra edition on the theme of "Chōsen" (Korea) 1 in 1939 and then again in 1940. This article focuses on these two issues and how they introduced Korean writers and literature to mainland Japanese audiences. It then goes on to consider what can be learned from reading the literary works contained therein. Considering the timing of these publications, it is easy to imagine the degree to which the imperialist agenda of the wartime regime is propagandized throughout their pages; however, we can perhaps still glean from them the significance of depicting Korean writers and their works for a Japanese audience at that time. Modern Japan has not enjoyed much attention in English-language scholarship at the point of this writing. One significant example is Chris
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