North Korean literature

This article deals with the literature of the northern half of the Korean peninsula following the proclamation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in 1948. For the literature of Korea before that date, see: Korean literature.

The partition of Korea following the Second World War led to a considerable cross-border movement, which included writers moving from North to South or from South to North.

North Korea's subsequent literary tradition was shaped and controlled by the State. "Guidelines for Juche Literature" published by the official Choson Writers' Alliance [조선 작가 동맹] emphasised that literature must extoll the country's leader, Kim Il-sung, and, later, Kim Jong-il. Only members of the Writers' Alliance are authorised to have their works published.

North Korean writers abroad

The DPRK Ministry of Culture promoted North Korean literature in Russia and China during the Cold War era. Several Soviet Koreanologists published studies on DPRK literature and translations in Russian. Among the novelists translated into Russian and Chinese were:

• Ri Ki-Yong (리기영 李箕永, 1895~1984).^[1][2]
• Hong Myong-Hui (洪命熹) (1888—1968) writer of Im Kkokjong (임꺽정) based on the life of the Korean nationalist hero Im Kkokjong (d.1562).^[3]
• Han Sorya author of the novella Jackals (1951).^[4]

Works published in Choson Munhak, the Choson Writers' Alliance's monthly literary journal, are accessible in South Korea and elsewhere.

Contemporary literature

As Ha-yun Jung puts it, "[i]f there is an underground network of dissident writers secretly circulating their writings under the watchful eyes of the Workers' Party, the world has not heard from them yet". In 2006, Words Without Borders included the works of four North Korean writers, translated into English, in its anthology Literature from the "Axis of Evil". Kang Kwi-mi's short story "A Tale of Music", published in Choson Munhak in February 2003, tells the tale of a young Zainichi Korean who discovers he is skilled at playing the trombone, moves to North Korea, and relinquishes music in favour of stonemasonry. His passion for the "music" of stones is caused by the greatness of Kim Jong-il as expressed through stone monuments. Lim Hwa-won's short story "The Fifth Photograph" is told from the perspective of a North Korean woman who visits post-Soviet Russia in the early 1990s, and finds a country in a state of moral turmoil for having turned its back on socialism. The narrator blames insidious American influence for Russia's woes, and emphasises the need for strong ideological commitment in North Korea. Byungu Chon's poem "Falling Persimmons" evokes the emotional suffering caused by the partition of Korea, and hopes for reunification.

The anthology also contains an excerpt from Hong Seok-jung's 2002 novel Hwangjini, which received the Manhae Literary Prize - the first time the South Korean literary award had been conferred upon a North Korean writer. Hwangjini is a historical novel set in the sixteenth century.

See also

• Korean literature
• Culture of North Korea
• North Korean writers

Source

1. ^ Ivanov, Viktorina Ivanovna (b.1929) A creative way to Lee Ki-Yong. 1960. The life and work of Lee Ki-Yong. 1962. New Fiction of Korea. Nauka. 1987
2. ^ Grave of North Korean Writer Ri Ki Yong
3. ^ Grave of North Korean Writer Hong Myong Hui
4. ^ Grave of North Korean Writer Han Sorya

• Soldiers on the Cultural Front: Developments in the Early History of North Korean Literature and Literary Policy

by Tatiana Gabroussenko; ISBN 9780824833961

• Literary Propaganda in North Korea: Liberalisation in the 21st Century? Dr Tatiana Gabroussenko
• Han Sorya and North Korean Literature: The Failure of Socialist Realism in the DPRK by Brian Myers ISBN 9780939657698
• Tatiana Gabroussenko, "North Korean "Rural Fiction" from the Late 1990s to the Mid-2000s: Permanence and Change" in Korean Studies - Volume 33, 2009, pp. 69-100, University of Hawai'i Press
• Stephen Epstein, "On Reading North Korean Short Stories on the Cusp of the New Millennium"
• "A Tale of Music" by Kang Kwi-mi
• Changgom (Long Sword) by Hong Tong-sik (Pyongyang: Kumsong Youth Publishing House); Vol 1, published in 2005, 448 pp; Vol. 2 published in 2006, 451 pps. Reviewed by Stephen Mercado
• "North Korea’s Literary Theory" The Korea Times
• "North Korean "Rural Fiction" from the Late 1990s to the Mid-2000s: Permanence and Change"
• "The Science Fiction Genre in North Korean Children's Literature: Influences and Transformations" by Dafna Zur, University of British Columbia
• Literary Scene in N. Korea
• "Frogs in a Well: Literary Life in North Korea"
• Ri Tong Chun