ABSTRACT
By overemphasizing ideology and political factions, studies of Korean literary history often disregard the shared need that all writers and literary groups faced to come to terms with the past and to find meaning in the post-liberation period (1945–1948). Writers in post-liberation Korea sought to narrate the historical transformations occurring on the peninsula as a means not only to shape historical narratives but also to contribute to the construction of a national literature. For writers across the ideological spectrum, recounting the past in narrative form functioned as a decolonizing act through which to remedy the wrongs of the past and construct a noncolonized subjectivity. Focusing on U.S.-occupied (1945–1948) southern Korea, this chapter examines the intersections between the leftist literary organization the Korean Writers Alliance (Chosŏn munhakka tongmaeng; hereafter KWA) and “nationalist camp” (minjok chinyŏng) writer Ch’ae Man-sik (1902–1950) and argues that literary works across the so-called ideological divide promoted and participated in the decolonization process.
