Koji Hayashi "Biographies of Zainichi Korean Writers" 03: Kim Sok-pom (Part 1)

Kim Sok-pom—Living the Literature of "Nihilism and Revolution"
(Part 1)

Koji Hayashi

Following Kim Tae-saeng from the previous installment, I would like to introduce the writer Kim Sok-pom, who is from Jeju Island, South Korea. While Kim Tae-saeng came to Japan at the age of five, Kim Sok-pom was born in Osaka after his pregnant mother arrived in Japan.
Compared to Kim Tae-saeng, who depicted the lives of ordinary people using a naive and delicate realistic Japanese prose style, Kim Sok-pom is a writer who, while writing in Japanese, uses a hard-edged style that boldly incorporates Korean folklore, taking historical events such as the so-called "April 3 Incident" (detailed in chapters 5 and 6) as his motifs. His representative work, "Volcano Island," has received high acclaim not only in Japan but also in South Korea.

1) A Little Nationalist

In early July 1941, Kim Tae-saeng, who had been summoned to the Ikuno Police Station for missing training for the Kyowakai (described later), watched as a boy who had arrived late and was made to stand at the front was mercilessly beaten, knocked to the floor, and kicked.

<I was dazzled by the figure of the thin boy, trembling, covered in humiliation and anger. He never once begged for forgiveness or help.> (Kim Tae-saeng, "My Map of Japan," Miraisha)

Kim Tae-saeng met that boy 20 years later. It was Kim Sok-pom.
While Kim Tae-saeng was born on Jeju Island on November 27, 1924, Kim Sok-pom was born in Osaka on October 2, 1925, but they can be considered of the same generation.
Like Kim Tae-saeng and many other Korean boys, Kim Sok-pom also engaged in labor from his youth, working in toothbrush factories, ironworks, and delivering newspapers.

At the age of 13, Kim Sok-pom spent several months on Jeju Island, where he experienced the nature of his homeland and awakened to the consciousness that Jeju Island, not Osaka where he was born, was his true home. The 15-year-old boy Kim Tae-saeng saw at the police station was already a little nationalist.
In the autumn of his 18th year, he stayed at his aunt's house on Jeju Island to study the Korean language, discussed Korean independence with friends he met at Gwaneumsa Temple, and returned to Osaka in 1944, where he worked and studied.

In March 1945, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea (*Note 1) dreaming of escaping to Chongqing, where it was located, he went to Seoul and became friends with Zhang Yong-seok and others he met at a Zen academy there, vowing to work for independence, but he contracted typhoid fever and returned to Osaka at the end of June.
In August, he learned of Japan's surrender while in the hospital, and in November, he went to Seoul again and reunited with his close friend Zhang Yong-seok, but returned to his mother in Osaka in the summer of 1946 for a planned one-month stay. After that, Kim Sok-pom could not return to his homeland for 42 years, until his visit to South Korea was realized in 1988.

→ Continued to (Part 2)

*(The copyright of this text belongs to the author. Please refrain from reprinting it on blogs, etc. For other matters, please contact Keikousya https://www.keikousyaweb.com/.)

......................................................................

◆ Author Profile

Koji Hayashi
Literary critic. Born in Saitama Prefecture in 1956. Former member of the Shin Nihon Bungakukai (New Japanese Literature Association).
His latest book, "Zainichi Korean Literature: Beyond the Literature of Antithesis" (Shinkansha, published November 2019), has been featured in media such as the Tosho Shimbun and has been well received.
Other works include "Theory of Zainichi Korean Japanese Literature" (1991, Shinkansha), "Theory of Postwar Non-Japanese Literature" (1997, ibid.), and "Manimani" (2001, Shin Nihon Bungakukai Publishing Department).
In addition, he has written numerous papers.
Kim Sok-pom is a writer he particularly respects.
"Gugin's Blog," which he has been keeping since 2011, http://kghayashi.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/ is a treasure trove! There are also many articles about Kim Sok-pom!

http://kghayashi.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2020/06/post-ad563d.html↑ This is a book review from when "Red Sea Under the Full Moon" was published in "Subaru." At the bottom of this page, there is a list of "Articles about Kim Sok-pom."

(Editorial Department Note)