A Study on the Trends of Korean Atomic Bomb Literature and Its Epic Reproduction：Focusing on “Discrimination against Korean Atomic Bomb Victims” Expressed in Novels and Poems

Abstract

This article analyzes the current status and varied aspects of Korean atomic bomb literature, which portrays the harm suffered by Korean atomic bomb victims in August 1945, and examines how discrimination against Korean atomic bomb victims was expressed in literary works. It also cites Japanese atomic bomb literature and shows that this same discrimination is present there, in doing so presenting both its similarities and differences with Korean works. According to Korean atomic bomb literature, the harm incurred by Korean victims of the atomic bomb and that of Japanese people is completely different. In particular, the paper looks at the ways in which Korean atomic bomb victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were discriminated against before and after the bombing through the identification of keywords [e.g., crows, AIGO (Oh my!), Omoni (Mother)] in Korean and Japanese atomic bomb novels and poems. In this process, it became clear that these keywords are used both in Korean atomic bomb literature and in some Japanese literature to convey discrimination against Korean atomic bomb victims and the cruelty inflicted by the use of the atomic bomb.