아동역사소설에 대한 대안적 접근 -­『요코 이야기』와 『내 이름이 교코였을 때』에 나타난 문화 간 비대칭성에 따른 차이 읽기 -­

Abstract

So Far from the Bamboo Grove is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Yoko Kawashima Watkins, a Japanese American writer, based on her childhood experience. It was published in the United States and gained tremendous popularity. However, this novel aroused controversy over whether its story was historically true or not in the United States, and its publication was rejected both in Korea and even Japan since it uses the period of Japanese colonial rule, a sensitive subject in both Korea and Japan, as its backdrop. After Linda Sue Park, a Korean American writer published When My Name Was Keoko to let children around the world know about Korean history, these two novels have often been compared when it comes to historical issues in historical fiction novels for children. When My Name Was Keoko bears resemblance to So Far from the Bamboo Grove in that its temporal background is the period of Japanese colonial rule over Korea and its main characters are children. These two novels obviously have a distinction because one approaches the situations of the times from the perspective of a Japanese American while the other comes from the perspective of a Korean American. This is why discussions on these novels have been more concerned with historical issues than analyses. This study proposes “reading into the differences incurred by asymmetry among cultures” as an alternative approach to children’s historical fiction novels, moving beyond the discussion on preexisting historical facts. When observing Yoko in So Far from the Bamboo Grove and Sunhee in When My Name Was Keoko, one comes to realize that Sunhee lives in a family culture that regards family as the most important value whereas Yoko grows independently in an individualized culture. It is typical for two writers who were brought up in different cultures to have different perspectives from which they experience and interpret the same historical event. That is, the historical differences Sunhee and Yoko have ever experienced are due to differences in their cultures. We should be able to read “historical reality” and “cultural asymmetry” in such children’s historical novels as the two stories mentioned above.