한국에 있어서의 미야자와 겐지 작품의 수용 -번역을 통해본 겐지-

Abstract

Miyazawa Kenji(1896~1933), A Japanese writer of children’s stories, and also a poet, a fairy tale writer, an agitator of agriculture, and a religious person, is well known in Korea. However, the response to his works has not been researched in detail up until today. This paper analyzes how Miyazawa’s works are being read and accepted in Korea. I focused on the translation of his works, the status of current researches, and specialized books related to Miyazawa. Compared to when Choi Pakkwang first researched Miyazawa Kenji’s acceptance in 1996, 23 books (18 children’s book, 3 picture books, 1 anthology of poems, 1 comic book) were published in Korea during these ten years. This shows a variety of media that represent his works. Translations have particularly flourished in the 21st century. Through this research, I witnessed Miyazawa as a writer who has crossed the borders of modern children’s literature, and is still ‘vital’ today. Observing how Miyazawa is accepted in Korea allows me to reconfirm the fascination of Miyazawa’s literature and to flourish our culture by evaluating his work freshly from our perspective. Evaluating Miyazawa will also mean what Lee Oduk, a literary critic of children’s literature, stated as a way of accepting foreign literature in his works as follows. “We have to reflect our history when reading and analyzing those works, we have to place those works in our daily life and think them over, and read those works in our words”. Unfortunately, I was not able to cover readers’ response toward Miyazawa’s works, and the impact of his works on Korea literature, because I have focused on the bibliography of translated works. So, a further study about Miyazawa in connection with the historical and cultural background is necessary. That will be my future task.