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Voices of the Korean Comfort Women: History Rewritten from Memories

Editor: Chungmoo Choi, Hyunah Yang
Author: ,
Publisher: , 2023
Link to online store *

An innumerable number of young women were taken from Korea during the Pacific War to provide sexual services to Japanese soldiers. These women including teenagers, euphemistically referred in Japanese documents as Comfort Women, were shipped to the vastly expanded battle fronts throughout the Japan-occupied territories covering from Northern China to Myanmar and to the South Pacific Islands. Many of these girls died, killed or abandoned during and after the war, but a small percentage of them returned only to face yet another devastating war at home and lasting social stigma.

In Voices of the Korean Comfort Women, nine survivors tell their traumatic life stories as to how they were taken, how they had been treated with atrocities at the Comfort Stations, and how they had survived through not only the Pacific War but also the Korean War and beyond. These often harrowing personal testimonies are each expanded by the interviewer’s observational notes thereby providing poignant contextual information.

This English translation of vital oral history, underpinned with theoretically informed guides, will be invaluable to students and scholars of Asian history, the Pacific War and war time sexual violence against women as well as those interested in historical trauma and human rights.

Chungmoo Choi is Professor of East Asian Studies at the University of California, Irvine, USA, where she teaches cultural studies, critical theory, gender, literature, film and religion of Korea. She is author of Healing Historical Trauma in South Korean Film and Literature and co-editor of Dangerous Women: Gender and Korean Nationalism.

Hyunah Yang is Professor of Law at Seoul National University, Republic of Korea, where she teaches gender and law, sociology of law, postcolonial feminist jurisprudence.

Source: publisher’s website

Contents

1. Hwa-sŏn Kim (김화선)
2. Ch’ang-yŏn Kim (김창연)
3. Ok-sŏn Han (한옥선)
4. Yŏng-ja Kim (김영자)
5. Kap-sun Ch’oe (최갑순)
6. Yun-hong An (안윤홍)
7. Sun-man Na (나순만)
8. Pok-tong Kim (김복동)
9. Pŏp-sun An (안법순)
Appendix I. Comfort Women and the Japanese Military Sexual Slavery System
Appendix  II. Group Discussion Guide
Appendix  III. [Map] Places where the victims were stationed as Comfort Women

* Where the book is available from a number of sources, they are prioritised as follows: (1) Amazon UK site, or Bookshop.org for the more recent uploads (2) Amazon US site (3) Other sites in US or Europe, including second-hand outlets (4) LTI Korea, where the title is advertised as available from there (5) Onlines stores in Korea. Links to Bookshop.org and Amazon UK site contain an affiliate code which, should you make a purchase, gives a small commission to LKL at no additional cost to you.