Under Jini Kim Watson’s scrutiny, the Asian Tiger metropolises of Seoul, Taipei, and Singapore reveal a surprising residue of the colonial environment. Drawing on a wide array of literary, filmic, and political works, and juxtaposing close readings of the built environment, Watson demonstrates how processes of migration and construction in the hypergrowth urbanscapes of the … [Read More]
Booklist: Literature (page 5)
Exploring North Korean Arts
This book is a cooperation between the MAK and the University of Vienna and contains a number of in-depth essays by international writers on a wide spectrum of issues, and with much detailed background information. The relationship between art and ideology is examined, how modern and traditional values are dealt with, as well as the commercial … [Read More]
Mujong (The Heartless): Yi Kwang-Su and Modern Literature
Yi Kwang-su (1892-1950) was one of the pioneers of modern Korean literature. When the serialization of Mujong (The Heartless) began in 1917, it was an immediate sensation, and it occupies a prominent place in the Korean literary canon. The Heartless is the story of a love triangle among three youths during the Japanese occupation. Yi … [Read More]
Crisis of Gender and the Nation in Korean Literature and Cinema: Modernity Arrives Again
From the publisher’s website: Crisis of Gender and the Nation in Korean Literature and Cinema is about the changing constructs of modernity, masculinity, and gender relations and discourses in Korean literature and cinema during the crucial decades of the colonial and postcolonial era, based on close historical examination and a wide-ranging theoretical foundation that look … [Read More]
The Northern Region of Korea: History, Identity, and Culture
From the publisher’s website: The residents of the three northern provinces of Korea have long had cultural and linguistic characteristics that have marked them as distinct from their brethren in the central area near the capital and in the southern provinces. The making and legitimating of centralized Korean nation-states over the centuries, however, have marginalized … [Read More]
Soldiers on the Cultural Front: Developments in the Early History of North Korean Literature and Literary Policy
From the publisher’s website: An understanding of contemporary North Korea’s literature is virtually impossible without an investigation of its formative period, 1945–1960, which saw a gradual transformation from the initial “Soviet era” to a Korean version of “national Stalinism.” This turbulent epoch established a long-lasting framework for North Korean literature and set up an elaborate … [Read More]
Representations of Femininity in Contemporary South Korean Women’s Literature
From the publisher’s website: This book discusses perceptions of ‘femininity’ in contemporary South Korea and the extent to which fictional representations in South Korean women’s fiction of the 1990s challenges the enduring association of the feminine with domesticity, docility and passivity. While existing literature addresses Korean women’s legal, educational, political and employment issues, this study … [Read More]
Figuring Korean Futures: Children’s Literature in Modern Korea
From the publisher’s website: This book is the story of the emergence and development of writing for children in modern Korea. Starting in the 1920s, a narrator-adult voice began to speak directly to a child-reader. This child audience was perceived as unique because of a new concept: the child-heart, the perception that the child’s body … [Read More]
My husband the poet
“wonderful translation . . . It’s the best book of prose I’ve read from Korea. nothing like it, nothing close.” (Professor David McCann, Harvard University) A deeply personal account of life as a poet’s wife is now available in English. Mok Sun-ok, poet Chon Sang-pyong’s wife of over 20 years, writes about her years with … [Read More]
Twentieth Century Korean Literature
From the publisher’s website: This short volume offers essential information and a basic framework for understanding twentieth-century Korean literature. Growing out of a continuous tradition of over 2,000 years, twentieth-century Korean literature, termed “modern Korean Literature” by Korean scholars, has been shaped by profound social and political transformations on the peninsula. Those decades of great … [Read More]
A History of Korean Literature
This comprehensive narrative history of Korean literature provides essential information for scholars and students as well as others. Combining history and criticism, the study reflects the latest scholarship and includes an account of the development of all genres. In 25 chapters, it covers twentieth-century poetry, fiction by women, and the literature of North Korea. It … [Read More]
Writing Women in Korea: Translation and Feminism in the Early Twentieth Century
From the publisher’s website: Writing Women in Korea explores the connections among translation, new forms of writing, and new representations of women in Korea from the early 1900s to the late 1930s. It examines shifts in the way translators handled material pertaining to women, the work of women translators of the time, and the relationship between … [Read More]
Colonial Modernity in Korea
From the publisher’s website: The twelve chapters in this volume seek to overcome the nationalist paradigm of Japanese repression and exploitation versus Korean resistance that has dominated the study of Korea’s colonial period (1910–1945) by adopting a more inclusive, pluralistic approach that stresses the complex relations among colonialism, modernity, and nationalism. By addressing such diverse … [Read More]
Remembering the Forgotten War: The Korean War Through Literature and Art
From the publisher’s website: In contrast to the many books that use military, diplomatic, and historic language in analyzing the Korean War, this book takes a cultural approach that emphasizes the human dimension of the war, an approach that especially features Korean voices. There are chapters on Korean art on the war, translations into English … [Read More]
Early Korean Literature: Selections and Introductions
From the publisher’s website: Preeminent scholar and translator David R. McCann presents an anthology of his own translations of works ranging across the major genres and authors of Korean writing—stories, legends, poems, historical vignettes, and other works—and a set of critical essays on major themes. A brief history of traditional Korean literature orients the reader … [Read More]
Koreans in Japan: Critical Voices from the Margin
From the publisher’s website: Koreans in Japan are a barely known minority, not only in the West but also within Japan itself. This pioneering study analyses these relations in the context of the particular conditions and constraints that Koreans face in Japanese society. The contributors cover a wide range of topics, including: the legal and … [Read More]