Korean literature meets digital world

By Charles Montgomery

In an era in which it seems that everyone owns a computer, laptop, tablet, or smart phone, sometimes it seems like stodgy old literature might be left in the pre-electronic dust.

The challenge for the Literature Translation Institute (LTI) of Korea is to ensure that even the most digital person in the world can have access to Korean modern literature.

LTI Korea has placed 20 works of early-modern Korean fiction online, where they can be accessed as PDF files or through applications for smartphones, tablets and other mobile Internet devices.

These twenty works are the equivalent of a free collection of modern colonial fiction of Korea that can give an overseas reader a snapshot of the first ''modern'' Korean literature and its styles, themes and discontents.

''The authors were chosen carefully to include all aspects of Korean life at the time, from the lives of peasants in villages, to the lives of stifled intellectuals in cities, the stories of the men and women who lived through the colonial era and in the industrialization era,'' says LTI Korea President Kim Seong-kon.

Charles Montgomery lectures at Dongguk University's Linguistics, Interpretation and Translation Department. / Korea Times

The works are all from that early era of Korean fiction and the authors include Gang Gyeong-ae, Kim Dong-in, Kim Yu-jeong, Hyun Jin-geon, Kim Nam-cheon, Kim Sa-ryang, Na Do-hyang, Baek Sin-ae, Yi Kwang-su, Yi Sang, Jo Myeong-hui, Chae Man-sik, and Yi Hyo-seok. This could be argued as a veritable ''Who's Who'' of early modern Korean fiction.

Although the stories focus on the same era and difficulties, the works span a wide stylistic range. Kim Yu-jeong's ''The Golden Bean Patch'' is an amusing modern fable with a message somewhere between the worth of a bird in the hand, and the dangers of counting your chickens before they hatch. It is almost a romp.

Yi Sang, on the other hand, one of the fathers of Korean modern literature and first modern Korean writers to incorporate European influences in his work, gives us ''The Child's Bone" and "Dying Words'' (a story which was, in fact, his contemplation of his own upcoming death), two extremely modernist works, which would appear current even.

The themes are similarly varied. Many stories directly address colonialism; a brave thing to do when these stories were written and published. Kim Dong-in's ''Lashing: Notes from a Prison Journal'' is an evocative and tragic tale of an overstuffed colonial prison.

The only way out seems to be by getting sentenced and when a 71 year old man gets sentenced to 90 lashes his cellmates want him to take accept the sentence to lessen, by one, the bodies in the cell.

''Transgressor of the Nation'' by Chae Man-sik, is one of the braver of these works, as it attempts to honestly explore the roles and motivations of collaborators.
''Home,'' by Hyun Jin-geon begins as a trifle, the random meeting between the narrator and a clown-like man dressed in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese clothes, but the man is revealed have been destroyed by the economic change that has come with colonialism and modernization. This story is a precursor to Cho Se-shui's ''The Dwarf,'' Hwang Sok-yong's ''The Road to Sampo, ‘'and similar books, and most of these stories can be read as Korean authors taking the first steps towards developing the themes that would inform Korean literature for the next seventy years.

Some of the stories are proto-feminist, with ''Management'' by Kim Nam-cheon, exploring the changing roles of women in a changing society, and ''After Beating Your Wife'' (with its horribly self-evident title), also by Kim Nam-cheon, revealing the subservient role women were traditionally assigned. ''Bunnyeo'' by Yi Hyo-seok is a similarly grim depiction. Poverty by Baek Sin-ae, explores the difficult role given to women, albeit with a more ‘grin and bear' it approach.

Some stories don't neatly fit categories, ''The Heat of The Sun,'' by Kim Yu-jeong is a brutal story of true love; touching and sad. ''Into the Light'' by Kim Sa-ryang considers the meaning of Korean national identity, yet manages to end with a bit of optimism. ''The Water Mill'' by Na Do-hyang is a horrific look into ageism and sexism, while Yi Kwang-su (who wrote ''Heartlessness," known as the first officially ‘modern' Korean novel) is represented by ''Gasil,'' a fairy tale revealing the stupidity of war, who war serves, and the desire of Koreans to return to their hometowns.

Chae Man-sik's ''Frozen Fish'' is, as many of his works, a sardonic look at social relationships in situations of unfair power, and ''Harbin, ‘' by Yi Hyo-seok is a Yi Sang-ish existential meditation on meaning.

These twenty evocative stories are free, with an emphasis on the "e!" and fans of literature should read them at http://ebook.klti.or.kr/ebooks/m/20century.jsp .
LTI Korea webmaster Park Chanwoo promises these online endeavors will continue.
''Last December Korean novelist Bae Suah's short story 'Highway with Green Apples' was introduced in the 'Day One' digital literary journal of Amazon Publishing, and a month later the story was published as an ebook by Amazon with the support of LTI Korea. LTI Korea will continue to make more ebooks available online so that more people can easily enjoy and access Korean literature.''
Fans of Korean literature can only hope so!

Charles Montgomery is an Associate Professor in the Linguistics, Interpretation and Translation Department at Dongguk. His website devoted to Korean translated literature is www.ktlit.com, and he can be reached at charles@ktlit.com ― ED.