Zainichi writers and the postcoloniality of modern Korean literature

This chapter argues that a critical examination of Zainichi literature sheds light on the postcolonial temporality of postwar Korean literature on the peninsula and in the Japanese diaspora. I argue that the diverging paths of Zainichi writers Kim Saryang, Chang Hyŏkchu, and Kim Talsu in the early years of the postwar illustrate a variety of alternate trajectories for colonial Korean literature. The postcolonial futures that they represent offer us a more-nuanced understanding of the origins of modern Korean literature under the conditions of a multilingual, multiethnic colonial modernity and demand transnational alternatives to the national literature model of Korean studies.