A Century of Queer Korean Fiction

by Samuel Perry (Translator)

Selections from the past hundred years of queer Korean literature

Following decades of LGBTQ+ activism, South Korea has seen a flowering of queer literature, film, and Internet culture. Many openly gay, lesbian, transgender, and other queer Korean writers find themselves in the national and international spotlight. But the rich variety of queer representation also extends into the Korean past, as this volume illustrates.

Beginning with contemporary works of fiction by Kim Bi, Sang Young Park, and Yi Seoyoung and reaching back through the last century, this collection includes works by the canonical authors Yi Kwangsu, Yi Kiyŏng, Ch'oe Chŏnghŭi, and O Chŏnghŭi as well as stories by Yu Sŭngjin and Kim Sunyŏng that have been recovered from archives. The introduction places these representations of queerness in their historical and cultural context, explores the sometimes problematic norms found in the stories, and considers the potential these texts hold for destabilizing binaries of sex and gender.

This volume contains the following "Yundo Is Back" (2017), "My Queer Year of Junior High" (2016), "Saltwater Baths" (2006), "Traditional Solo" (1970), "Struggling amid This Despair" (1965), "Spring" (1950), selections from the novel Spring (1940), "Dear Sister, I'm Off to the Moon" (1933), and "Yun Kwangho" (1918).

Genres: LGBT, Queer, Short Stories, Fiction

316 pages, Paperback

Published December 8, 2023

Reviews

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Century of Queer Korean Fiction has been assembled and translated by Samuel Perry, Associate Professor of East Asian Studies at Brown University.

This is, as the name suggests, an anthology of selected Korean short fiction with a queer theme over the period from 1918 to 2017. A Korean version of the work has been published alongside titled 한국의 퀴어 문학: 한 세기.

The authors included are as follows - where I've followed the Goodreads romanisation of author's names where present, alongside Perry's preferred revised McCune–Reischauer rendition:

박상영 - Sang Young Park
윤도가 돌아왔다 (2017), translated as 'Sundo is Back'

이서영 - Yi Seyoung
'3학년 2반' (2016), translated as 'My Queer Year of Junior High'

김비 - Kim Bi
'해수탕' (2006), translated as 'Saltwater Baths'

오정희 - Oh Jung-hee (the anthology renders as O Chŏnghŭi)
'산조' (1970), translated as 'Traditional Solo'

유승진 - Yu Sŭngjin
'이 정망 속에 부림치고...' (1965), translated as 'Struggling amid This Despair'

최정희 - Ch'oe Chŏng-hŭi
'봄' (1950), translated as 'Spring'

리기영 - Yi Kiyŏng
Extract from 봄 (1940, revised 1957), translated as 'Spring'

김순영 - Kim Sunyŏng
'언니 저 달나라로' (1933), translated as 'Dear Sister, I'm Off to the Moon'

이광수 - Kwang-su Yi (the anthology renders as Yi Kwang-su)
'윤광호' (1918) translated as 'Yun Kwangho'

A key feature of the volume is a well written and highly informative 50 page introduction by Perry explaining the rationale for the collection and setting the pieces in context. As he explains:

The volume is not meant to be a comprehensive, or even exemplary, collection of queer writings, per se, but rather a short selection of works that highlight different representations of queerness across the modern period and that invite readers to reflect on the ways literature has performed important cultural work in the shaping of sex and gender. This introduction offers readers a way of understanding these literary works within a broader framework that emphasizes their cultural and historical contexts.

His introduction begins with the oldest piece, that by Yi Kwang-su, author of 무정 (Mejeong), often regarded as the first modern Korean novel, and works through time to end with more modern pieces, including that by International Booker Prize longlisted Sang Young Park. Rather effectively, though, in the anthology itself the pieces are presented in the reverse order, so that the reader starts in the present and works backwards.

The authors selected include some key names from Korean literature - as well as the two already mentioned, it features Oh Jung-hee and Ch'oe Chŏng-hŭi, and the North Korean author Yi Kiyŏng, but also some relatively unknown writers.

'Sundo is Back' is an interesting choice to begin the collection, as the liberal narrator comments adversely on his schoolboy friend Sundo. Both men are gay, but with Sundo coming from a fundamentalist Christian family, conservative in his political views, and rejecting gay club culture, the story cuts across various intersectional elements of sexuality, race, religion and socio-economic background.

Yi Seoyoung's 'My Queer Year of Junior High' is a novel for the internet-cafe age, set in the early 2000s amongst high-school girls who hook up online and meet secretly, while the school authorities crack down on any suggestion of non-heterosexual behaviour. It also requires some translation glosses, as Perry explains, with the 2반 (class two) of the title, also being the same term 이반 (from the Chinese characters 異般, meaning abnormal) adopted by activists as a Korean neologism for homosexuals; and the word 팸 serving in chatrooms as both a Korean phonetic rendition of fam, for family, and femme. The narrator's story ends in self-harm, when, caught by a classmate and reported to the authorities, she claims her lover, more overtly non-conforming, seduced her, rather than the consensual act it was.

'Saltwater Baths' is by a Korean transgender author Kim Bi and is set on the beautiful southern island of Jeju. The narrator, also a transgender woman, is accepted by her own family, but troubled by a history than includes scenes of (imagined?) violence, and her own attempt to adopt a young boy, and wonders if she will be accepted in the public baths on Jeju, her first time there since transitioning. The dialect of Jeju, unfamiliar to the narrator, and the local culinary customs provide an effective background to the story, as does the idllyic scenery - here a contrast between the island and her own less pleasant memories of conflict with the boy:

Like I said before, you'll just have to manage on your own from now on!
The color of the ocean was impossibly blue ...
How many times do I have to tell you? You had a choice to make: either me or your friends, one or the other, remember?
It's heavenly here, thought Myõng. The ocean always seemed like a piece of paradise whenever she visited.
Well, assuming there was, in fact, an ocean in paradise.
I've already given you 'one last chance'!
It's not the kind of place where humans overcome nature, but where nature's bounty seeps into all human impurities and easily washes them away.
No, I'm not giving up on you. It's you who has abandoned me! Why not find that teacher of yours, or go to the police station and tell the police to find you a new group home. Maybe that way you can live the life you want to live!
For Myong, it was something akin to reverence, a feeling of gratitude that lasted all day long. She had never been much of a religious person, but this place seemed so spiritual to her, so pristine, she felt grateful for just being alive here, eternally grateful.
Fine then, 'cause I'm sick of you. I never want to see again. Never!

'Traditional Solo' is perhaps the most literary of all the stories, which very effectively and poetically uses the background of a traditional 꼭두각시 (kkeoktugaksi) puppet show, the elderly puppeteer narrator recalling, as he performs, his relationship with a boy in Manchuria, who later died, as well as the early death of his mother and his older sister who ran away with an itinerant performer.

'Struggling amid This Despair' is by a little known author but from an anthology of same-sex love stories from the journal Arirang in 1965, and is a brief story told by a gay hairdresser which has, I think, been included to illustrate literary attitudes at the time - the narrator feeling that his sexual affairs with men could be ended if he could find the love of a good woman.

Ch'oe Chŏng-hŭi's 'Spring' is, like 'My Queer Year of Junior High', a story of same-sex attraction between high school girls, although written 2/3rds of a century earlier and probably set in the colonial period. The narrator, rather as in the previous story, seems to try to overcome her sexuality by convincing herself she is attracted to one of a group of boy who taunt her.

The next piece features extracts from North Korean writer Yi Kiyŏng's novel of the same name, 'Spring'. The translation is taken from the North Korean version but Perry includes footnotes showing some of the amendments made from the original, which is the version that exist in the South, where the North's censors appear to have wanted to tone down, although not erase, the homosexual elements.

'Dear Sister, I'm Off to the Moon' is a brief work, largely a letter from a 16 year old girl to her female lover, perhaps imaginary.

The collection ends with Yi Kwang-su's 1918 piece 'Yun Kwangho', set in Japan, a character study of the titular character, who, emigrating from Korea to Tokyo, has worked his way up from a servant, and worker in a noodle shop, to studying economics in a top university and with hopes of being the first Korean to earn a PhD. However:

Something was missing in the depths of Kwangho’s soul, something dark and cavernous that to Kwangho seemed impossible to fill. Each time he appeared with his own eyes into the emptiness inside him, he felt a sorrow, a desolation, that was difficult to describe. He also knew how impossible it would be to remedy this hollowness on his own. In truth, only another human being could fill it, though it was still unclear to him who exactly that human being might be.

He finds himself attracted to men and women he sees on streetcars, imagining relationships with them, and eventually falls for P., who he suspects has similar feelings. But when he confesses his love to P., the latter rejects him, not for his sexuality, but rather for his looks and his lack of wealth, and this leads him into alcoholism and ultimately taking his own life. That P., whose gender is carefully not mentioned, is male, is revealed by the author in an unnecessary, and rather clumsy last line ('P., let is be said, was a man') although in the context of this collection, and indeed Perry's introduction, this is no surprise to the reader.

Overall, a brilliantly assembled and fascinating work. My thanks to the publisher for a review copy.

[Nicki Markus · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Century of Queer Korean Fiction was a pleasing collection of tales and a fascinating look at the history of LGBT fiction in Korea. I would say, though, that despite a 300+ page count, only about 200 pages are actually the selection of fiction, as all the introductory material ran for about 90 pages! While the information in this introduction was interesting, the length of it was wearying when I wanted to get to the stories. It might have been better to do a quick general introduction and then have the more detailed introductions to the stories themselves split up, so each story was prefaced by a short introduction outlining its place in history and any relevant background information, especially since by the time I'd read through 90+ pages to get the stories I had forgotten some of the contextual information given anyway. Having it immediately before each tale would have eliminated this problem. But once I got to the stories, I enjoyed them, so this is still a very worthwhile collection for anyone interested in the history of LGBT fiction and in Korean fiction. I am giving it 4.5 stars.

I received this book as a free eBook ARC via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.