The Men in the Mirror

An interesting additional piece, Reclaiming North Korean Literature, by Shirley Lee, which Words Without Borders added after their first “collection” of pieces on North Korean literature, which KTLIT talked about here.

One of Ms. Lee’s money quotes is:

The literature of North Korean exiles is written from a viewpoint we feel we can identify with, even if we have not experienced what they have; in this way, it provides a bridge of communication between North Koreans and the rest of the world to speak human-to-human—something almost impossible to accomplish when the language of the regime is the mediator between us and them.

Yet I feel familiarity of function does not wholly account for North Korean exile literature’s relatively docile nature when being rendered into English. The bare language and simplicity of the literary web of allusions in this literature plays a large part, too. Perhaps it is a symptom of severe cultural trauma.

Which raises interesting points about the “translation” of literature from wholly disparate cultures, but also makes a point about the docility of North Korean fiction that seems interesting to me as a comment on South Korean fiction as well.

Ms. Lee is editor of the leading Web site about North Korea by North Koreans in exile, New Focus International.  which is worth checking out, and has a focus far wider than just literature.

She is also the translator and editor of the memoir and poems of exiled North Korean state poet Jang Jin-sung (whose poetry was also printed in the Asia Literary Review volume which solely focused on Korean literature). Jang Jin-sung is a very interesting character who, very literally, wrote himself out of the country and information about the memoir Crossing the Border can be found here. Here is an interview with Jang.

If you are interested in North Korean fiction, it is also worth checking out Korean Short Stories A Collection from North Korea.