“Manchuria” and the Proletarian Literature of Colonial Korea

This chapter explores the relationship between Korean Agrarian Literature and colonialism in Manchuria. Certain Korean writers dealt with problems arising from Korean farmers flowing into Manchuria and wrote related fiction to regard Korean migrant issues as reflections of their own dilemmas expressed in Korean Proletarian Agrarian Literature. They especially emphasized Manchuria as a place of human reform. However, colonial victimhood transformed into colonialism when they crossed the Tumen River, the border between the Korean Peninsula and Manchuria. This chapter reveals how the ironic shift of subjectivity performed in the process shows how Korean ethnic nationalism was domesticated into imperial logic