ABSTRACT
In spite of the obstacles facing Koreans resident in Japan, a number of Koreans have made a considerable impact in the literary field, and several have won prestigious literary prizes. This owes something to the general Japanese background where, since early in the century, a prodigious literary output has been the product of high popular literacy and feverish social development. Within this context, moreover, Korean writers have had the advantage that the literary world has generally been less conformist and more cosmopolitan than the ruling establishment. Yi Kwang-su is described as the father of modem Korean literature and as ‘Korea’s Tolstoy.’ Yi Yang-ji is a writer who is described as belonging to a generation beyond the period when Japan-resident Korean writers had a choice between assimilationism and reversion to an autonomous Korean identity. The prototypes of these two trends are respectively Chang Hyok-ju and Kim Sa-ryang.
