In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Introduction
  • Samuel Perry (bio)

Literature about what now is often referred to as "non-normative" genders and sexualities has existed in Korea for centuries—in works of fiction, poetry and biography—even as what counts as "normative" has shifted over time.1 It was in the wake of Korea's colonization, and with the advent of "compulsory heterosexuality" in the first few decades of the 20th century, for example, that the institutions and discourses defining normativity transformed significantly, effectively stigmatizing "abnormal" people in new, and newly comprehensive, ways. It has been only in the last decade or so that "queer" (kwiŏ), too, has emerged as an important umbrella category in South Korea to encapsulate a consciousness, an identity, and a broader cultural formation, which has sought to collectively recast what was once stigmatized in affirming ways—as queer activists have fought legal battles, as queer historians have sought to unearth untold histories, and as queer writers have forged new modes of representation when it comes to stories about people who identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community. [End Page 11]

The past decade or so has in fact seen the field of "queer literature" (kwiŏ munhak) expand exponentially in South Korea. The website rainbowbookmark.com, for example, indexes hundreds of novels and short stories originally written in Korean, including young adult fiction, graphic novels, comic books, and erotica—and published in a wide array of venues, from the gorgeously eclectic, if short-lived, queer zine DUIRO, to some of Korea's most prestigious literary journals. Not only international venues such as Words Without Borders, but even Korean Literature Now, a quarterly funded by the national Literature Translation Institute of Korea, has in recent years featured works of Korean queer literature. AZALEA too has also published works about same-sex love by canonical writers such as Yi Kwangsu and Shin Kyung-Sook, as well as the best-selling poet Ki Hyŏngdo. This issue of AZALEA, however, stands out for its special focus on contemporary works of queer literature, largely written by—and even translated by—an entirely new generation of people. Featuring work by several prize-winning writers not yet seen in translation, as well as by some of Korea's "hottest names of the moment,"2 the issue includes seven short stories and excerpts from a graphic novel, as well as a critical essay.

Kim Keonhyung's scholarly essay deserves special attention here as a work of queer criticism, first published in 2018 in the leading journal Munhak Tongne. A comparative effort to periodize—and problematize—recent queer writing by productively drawing on the work of well-known Western theorists, Kim's article brilliantly analyzes several important works of literature that have been widely recognized, and even translated into English—including works by Kim Young-ha, Yun I-hyeong, Hwang Chŏng-ŭn, and Park Sang Young—making his essay especially helpful for teachers and students alike.3 [End Page 12]

Having spent the last seven years compiling and translating an anthology of queer Korean literature from the last century, what is especially striking to me about many of the works included in this volume is the way that queerness is represented in both complexly intersectional and historically specific ways. Characters in these works are not just self-consciously queer, their experiences of queerness are shaped by issues of disability, generation, and socioeconomic status—a relationship to higher education, the corporate workplace, Christianity, family, and even COVID-19. While many of the stories collected here—including Seo Jangwon's "Like in a French Film" (P'ŭransŭ yŏnghwa ch'orŏm) and Kim Hyun's "Virtual Tour" (kasang t'uŏ)—are recent enough to refer to the ongoing pandemic, in Park Sang Young's "Love After a Fortnight" (Porŭm ihu ŭi sarang), for example, the pandemic plays an important role in the narrative arc of the story as Park incorporates into his work the 2020 journalistic "witch hunt" of gay men caught up in an early outbreak of COVID in the gay district of Itaewon, which exacerbated the anxieties of middle-class gay Koreans, many of whom were not out to their families. Recasting the image of "feeble...

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