한국현대문학사 기술을 위한 한국계 미국 작가들의 작품 연구

Abstract

The literature written by Koreans living aboard belongs to the Korean people. This helps people understand Korean culture, thus the gap between Korean and world literature can be narrowed. Furthermore, the success of Korean writers living abroad plays a large part in expanding Korean cultural territory. Korean-American literature is representative of Korean literature in other parts of the world because the U. S has the largest population of Koreans living outside Korea. The achievements of Korean–Americans writers, who write in English (just like Korean-Canadian, Korean-English, etc) are more highly regarded than other Korean writers living aboard in none English speaking countries. Especially, the literature of other English speaking countries being closer to world literature than Russian-Korean and Japanese- Korean literature. Almost of all Korean-American poets proudly write poetry in Korean, with the majority being first or 1.5 generation. This is in contrast to novelists, who are mainly 1.5 or second generation Korean-Americans. Compared to Korean-American poets writing in Korean, novelists create their best-known works in English. This is widely known in the literary world and is why English literature is a large part of world literature. Thus, Korean literary history must also include works by Korean- Americans. It gives them a sense of pride to be included, rather than being alienated. Korean literary history must become more vibrant and alive. Various conditions exist that hinder this inclusion. It is not only for the American literary domain and English-language authors to evaluate Korean-American writers, but also and especially for native Korean writers and the ones who write Korean literary history to evaluate. Effort must be made to have these wonderful writers evaluated by both Korean and English-language writers. As Korean cultural territory expands, so must Korean literary history.