Themes in Korean Literature

post-war (1953–1961)

• Censorship during Syngman Rhee period
• Post-censorship
• Trauma
• “Brother enemy”
  • Unsure of how to talk about North Korea
    • Close to sense of one nation
• Extreme outsider ideologies
  • Lack of understanding
• Pitiful refugees from the North
  • Lee Ho-cheol “Far from Home” (1955)
  • Lee Beomseon “A Stray Bullet” (1959)
• “Communist other”
  • Lee Beomseon “The People of Hak Village” (1955)
• Proxy war of superpowers
  • Ch’oe Inhun “The Square” (1961)

Korean War (1961–1979)

• Park Chung Hee’s coup d’etat (May 16, 1961)
• Post and pre-censorship
• Anti-communism nation
• Experienced war as children and teenagers
• Korean war with non-ideological perspectives
  • Yun Heunggil “Rainy Spell” (1970)
  • Kim Weonil The Evening Glow (1977–78)
  • Hong Seongweon North and South (1977)

Cold War (1980–1987)

• “Division Literature”
• “Reunification Literature”
• Question of national identity
  • Legitimacy of government anti-communism laws
  • Perpetual Cold War through vilification of North Korea
  • Return to village/peasant roots
  • Confucian ideal
    • Loyalty to the state or one’s family?
• Representative literature
  • Jo Jungrae (1943–) “Land of Exile” (1981)
  • Im Cho’ru “My Father’s Land”