Posts Tagged ‘North Korean literature’

The Rise of the Anonymous Writer: A Review of Kim Yu-kyung’s “Place of Human Desecration”

By | October 09, 2017

Where Deborah Smith’s translation of “The Accusation” opened up Bandi’s short stories for the English-speaking world, there are several novels by defector writers that are only in Korean. “Place of Human Desecration” is one. Robert Lauler reviews it.

Collapsist Narratives and State Strength: Reading The Interview through Han Sorya’s Jackals

By | February 18, 2015

Han Sorya’s conception of Americans as “jackals” is a wartime description of an enemy but one that never went away–in a sense like the war itself. In this essay, David Fields surveys the strength of North Korean state narratives, folding in a very famous Korean War short story and a certain controversial Hollywood film.

Sino-NK 2013 Rewind: North Korean Literature at Masik Speed

By | December 20, 2013

Benoit Berthelier examines North Korean cultural production from the “inside,” revealing literary outputs determinedly in step with current manifestations of the urgent–and of Kim Jong-un himself.

Leader as Teacher, Leader as Scribe: An Introduction to North Korean Children’s Literature

By | October 07, 2013

Christopher Richardson follows up on Sino-NK’s critically acclaimed “Benoit Symposium” with an exclusive essay on the challenge of children’s literary cultural production, focusing primarily on the classic text, “A Winged Horse.”

Benoit Symposium: From Pyongyang to Mars: Sci-fi, Genre, and Literary Value in North Korea

By | September 25, 2013

History and the past are subjects close to North Korea’s institutional and cultural heart, but what about cultural expressions of the potential future. In this essay, Benoit Berthelier explores the science fiction output of Pyongyang.