Translating the Korean War and the national division: reconstruction of narratives in division fiction in Korea

The Korean War and the national division are important events when discussing Korea’s politics, society and culture.

These events continue to affect every aspect of Koreans’ lives in modern Korean society from deep in their consciousness. Division fiction in Korea has been written to testify and remember the dark history of the Korean War and the division of the nation, and also to wish for the reunification of the peninsula.

It is not very well known in the rest of the world but has established itself as an important genre in Korean literature. When these important events are revived in literature and cross borders to meet readers in other cultures, the stories based on the same event are inevitably reinterpreted in the translation process and construct new images and narratives of the War and the division. In this presentation, how narratives on this tragic event change is presented based on socio-narrative approach.

About the speaker

Suseong Park is a book translator who has published more than a dozen Korean translations of English books covering various genres, from children’s books to business books. She is a PhD candidate in translation studies at SOAS University of London.

Her research focuses on division fiction in Korea as peripheral literature, narrative changes in translation and the consequent impact of and strategy for the translation and circulation of peripheral literature.