Writings of the Korean Student Soldier in Burma Campaign of the Asia-Pacific War ：Lee Ga-hyung’s <i>River of Fury</i>

Abstract

Conscripted as a student soldier and deployed to the Burma front, Lee Ga-hyung is a distinctive writer who literalizes the memory of the Asia-Pacific War outside of the national political logic. The narrator of the autobiographical novel River of Fury, written simultaneously in Korean and Japanese, positions himself as the ugliest soldier on the Burmese battlefield. And it is only through the eyes of this loser that the anti-imperialist soldier, comfort women, and guards of POW could be captured, which were not captured in the pre-existing war memoirs. In River of Fury, Lee continues to call out the names of those who were sacrificed for no reason during the war. He attempts to transcend national and ethnic boundaries with these calling. The exclamation of “don’t die” and “come back alive” comfort all the victims, criticize the war and empire, and elevate River of Fury into a complete literary work.