The Jeju Massacre, National Allegory and Cultural Revolution in Kim Sok Pom’s <i>Karasu no Shi</i> (1957)

Abstract

What can a spy story tell us about the effects of neo-colonial nation building on diasporic subjectivity? Kim Sok Pom’s 1957 <i>Karasu no Shi</i> [The Death of the Crow] illustrates the lived experience of postcolonial subjectivity in a contested site overrun by competing imperial powers. The novel focusses on the 1948 uprising on Jeju Island, the subsequent division of the Korean peninsula, exile and diasporic identity. It confronts official accounts of Korea’s post-war past and turns a forgotten history into cultural memory, a central task of national allegory; indeed, the article champions an allegorical reading of <i>Karasu no Shi</i>, despite divergent views outlined herein. In Kim’s text, principal characters are situated allegorically on the Korean stage after Japan’s defeat; they personify varying cultural and political attachments or paradigms. Each exists in a state of profound overlap, with the spy as the linchpin. The spy’s divided state of being resonates allegorically with the experiences of <i>zainichi</i> Koreans in early post-war Japan. Saturated with personal and political meaning, the novel contributes to the fabric of <i>zainichi</i> Korean history with threads that tie to the story of a continuing underclass and disrupts enduring notions of a homogenous Japan. Kim ultimately articulates possibilities for survival.