The personal is political in Kinuta o utsu onna [The cloth fuller]: A ‘little narrative' by zainichi Korean writer Lee Hoe Sung

Foxworth Elise
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Foxworth Elise: Lecturer in Japanese studies and language in the School of Social Sciences at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. E.Foxworth@latrobe.edu.au

Contemporary Japan, 2010, vol. 22, issue 1-2, 205-221

Abstract: In 1971 Japan-based second-generation Korean writer Lee Hoe Sung became the first ‘foreigner’ in Japan to win the esteemed Akutagawa Prize for Belles Lettres for his semi-autobiographical novel Kinuta o utsu onna [The cloth fuller]. It recounts the life and death of a young Korean woman, Chang Suri, during the 1940s, as remembered by her son. Whilst fascism, democracy, and Korean nationalism constitute the meta-narratives that informed the lives of Lee's generation in (post)colonial Japan between the 1940s and 1960s, the writer underscores the importance of the little narrative for exploring identity and a sense of belonging. Eschewing hyper-political approaches that attempt to explain the whole movement of history and social life or nationhood as a ‘grand narrative’, Lee's poignant rendition of the life and death of a young woman is rather a ‘little narrative’ of personal suffering and redemption. Lee's story functions as a sinse t'aryong (i.e., a traditional Korean form of oral lamentation and narrative storytelling), which allows him to point to ‘Korean-ness’ as an anchor. This anchor secures the listener to a solid ‘home’ or cultural place of reference that can support them in their search for a sense of identity and belonging in the context of colonialist oppression and dislocation.

Keywords: zainichi Korean literature; Japanese literature; postcolonialism; little narrative; sinse t'aryong; lamentation; Lee Hoe Sung (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:conjap:v:22:y:2010:i:1-2:p:205-221:n:12

DOI: 10.1515/cj.2010.012

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