LTI Korea 
DLKL 
SIWF 
Writers Transcend Diaspora scrap
by Kim Jonghoi
October 30, 2014
While there is no shortage of expressions that reflect this new era of globalization, the world as one global village, one word has become imperative when discussing the current state of the Korean people. Diaspora, a term derived from the Greek meaning “scattering” or “dispersion,” is most notably used in reference to the Jews who were forced to live outside their homeland for most of Jewish history, while retaining their ethnic identity and religious practices.
The nature and scope of the diaspora, however, is similar to what has happened to the Korean people since the late 19th century, many of whom left their homeland to survive the turbulent history of modern Korea: the forced occupation of the Korean peninsula by Imperial Japan and the subsequent Korean War that divided the nation into the South and the North. The Korean diaspora includes the ethnic Koreans who moved to China and the Soviet Union in search of a better life; to Japan, drafted into the military but unable to return; and later as exported labor to the United States.
The literatures of the two Koreas, developed and accumulated separately since division, as well as what has been written by ethnic Koreans in the U.S., Japan, China, and Central Asia, are commonly referred to as “diaspora literature of the Korean people.” They are grouped together not only based on literary concepts but also because they each share in the sense of being in-between two worlds, heavily dependent on their adoptive culture while also maintaining a separate identity through their connection to that from which they originated.
Mass migration from the Korean peninsula to China and the Soviet Union began in the late 19th century. Currently there are around two million Chaoxianzu, or ethnic Koreans of Chinese nationality, in China, and around 500,000 Koryo-saram, or ethnic Koreans of Russian nationality, living in the post-Soviet states, each having formed their own unique culture, which includes literature. Among them, many fiction writers in the Koryo-saram community, including Anatoli Kim, and the Chaoxianzu community, including Jin Xuezhe and Lin Yuanchun, base their work on their people’s history of diaspora. In other countries as well, numerous writers of Korean ethnicity continue to write in the Korean language.
In Japan, there are currently over 600,000 Zainichi Koreans. The number of fiction writers from this community that have made a reputation for writing in either Japanese or Korean is also significant including Kimu Tarusu, Kimu Sokubomu, Lee Kaisei, Yan Sogiru, I Yanji, Yu Miri, Gengetsu, and Kaneshiro Kazuki.
In the U.S., there are over two million Korean Americans, of whom a large number of fiction writers write in either English or Korean, including Yong Ik Kim, Richard Eun Kook Kim, Nora Okja Keller, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Chang-Rae Lee, Susan Choi, and Cathy Song. Some of the most recent works include The Piano Teacher by Janice Lee, Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee, Edinburgh by Alexander Chee, and Miles from Nowhere by Nami Mun. This new generation was mostly born and raised in the U.S. and, unlike the first generation of Korean American writers who wrote autobiographic tales or stories about the past, their works are accessible to a wider audience in this new multiethnic, multicultural world by exploring the universal question of what it means to be human.
Born between two languages and two cultures, writers from the Korean diaspora had no choice but to balance their lives in the borderlands in between. Their works portray persuasively the joys and sorrows of living away from one’s homeland in multiple layers such as ethnicity, nationality, and gender. As such, Korean diaspora literature refers to a wide range of writers and their works of fiction, and yet there are also many writers of Korean ethnicity and nationality in Korea who write in Korean about experiences of “transnationalism,” expanding the realm of diasporic writing, as was covered in the previous special edition of _list.
What is important, however, is the fact that such diasporic use of language, the temporal and geographical setting of the stories, and narrative structures do not merely express the diverse possibilities of how to write fiction. Instead, they verify how an ethnic people, who share a common tradition and customs, express those values with an awereness and objective of life. At the same time, the goal is not to remain within that group of people, but go beyond, resulting in a greater level of understanding across different peoples and cultures.
Based on the trends in Korean diaspora literature mentioned in this issue of _list, the related writers and their works of fiction from around the world exist in the form of “scattered seeds,” to borrow the expression of another article in this special edition. The writers have composed fiction, each bearing their own wounds from living in-between two distinct worlds, truly belonging to neither. As plants that sprout in arid land bear the sweetest fruit, I hope that the brilliant literary fruits produced by the painful experiences of the diaspora can soon receive a well-deserved positive assessment. 
by Kim Jonghoi
Literary Critic and Professor of Korean Literature
Kyunghee University
Writer 필자 소개
Kim Jonghoi
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