The Literature Book

330

See also: The Heartless 241

A

fter Japan’s surrender at

the end of World War II, a

line of latitude that crosses

the Korean Peninsula, the 38th

parallel, was chosen as the dividing

line between Soviet and US

occupation zones, and is still

roughly in effect as the border

between North and South Korea.

The postwar generation of South

Korean writers embraced a

traditionalist movement that looked

back at an idealized past. But this

nostalgia was rejected by the

writers of the 1960s, who sought

to engage with the psychological

damage of recent Korean history:

the Japanese occupation (1910–

45), the Korean War (1950–53),

and communist rule in the north.

Evils from abroad

In his novel The Guest, Hwang

Sok-yong (1943–) deals with the

real-life Korean War massacre at

Sinchon, in what is now North

Korea. The novel’s Korean-born

protagonist, a Christian minister

living in the US, returns to visit the

site, along with the ghost of his

brother. He discovers the truth of

the atrocity: it was not perpetrated

by US forces, but was a result of

fighting between Christian and

communist Koreans themselves.

Christianity and communism

are seen as foreign “guests” that

have turned Koreans against each

other; and the Korean word for

guest refers also to smallpox,

another plague from the West that

ravaged the country. The novel’s

12-part structure mirrors that of a

shamanistic ritual to cure smallpox,

known as a “guest exorcism.” ■

IT ALL STEMS FROM

THE SAME NIGHTMARE,

THE ONE WE CREATED

TOGETHER

THE GUEST (2001), HWANG SOK-YONG

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

The 38th parallel

BEFORE

1893 Literature in Korea

emerges from the cultural

shadow cast by classical

Chinese literature. The first

Western work of fiction printed

in Korean is John Bunyan’s

The Pilgrim’s Progress, which

precedes even a translation of

the Bible, published in 1910.

1985 Hwang Sok-yong’s The

Shadow of Arms is an account

of black-market trading during

the war in Vietnam (another

East Asian country split

between north and south).

1964–94 Pa rk Kyong-n i’s

epic 16-volume historical

novel The Land depicts the

struggles of Koreans under

Japanese oppression.

AFTER

2005 North and South Korean

authors attend a joint literary

congress for the first time.

Ever since we were children

we have known that the

Guest is a Western disease.

The Guest

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