Reading colonial Korea through fiction : the ventriloquists / Kim Chul ; translated by Hye-Joon Yoon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kim, Chul, 1951- author.

Contributor:

Yoon, Hye-Joon, translator.

Series:

Critical Studies in Korean Literature and Culture in Translation

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Korean fiction--1919-1945--History and criticism.

Korean fiction.

Politics and literature--Korea--History.

Politics and literature.

Korean fiction--Japanese influences.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (151 pages).

Place of Publication:

Lanham, Maryland : Lexington Books, 2018.

Summary:

Reading Colonial Korea through Fiction is a compilation of thirteen original essays which was first serialized in a quarterly issued by the National Institute of Korean Language, Saekukŏsaenghwal (Living our National Language Anew) in a column entitled, "Our Fiction, Our Language" between 2004 to 2007. Although the original intent of the Institute was to elucidate on important features particular to "national fiction" and the superiority of "national language," instead Kim Chul's astute essays offers a completely different reading of how national literature and language was constructed. Through a series of culturally nuanced readings, Kim links the formation and origins of Korean language and fiction to modernity and traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period while demonstrating in a very lucid way how colonialism constitutes modernity and how all modernity is perforce colonial, given the imperial crucibles from which modernist claims emerged. For Kim, denying this reality can only lead to violent distortions as he eschews appeals to a preexisting framework, preferring instead to ground his theoretical insights in subtle, innovative readings of texts themselves.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4985-6569-7