Under consideration in this review are two studies of colonial Korean literature that will help us appreciate why there has been so much excitement about English-language scholarship in the field of modern Korean literature recently, after years of unfavorable comparisons with studies of other East Asian literatures. In very different ways that turn out to be surprisingly complementary, Sunyoung Park and Janet Poole enable a deep, balanced, and meticulously contextualized understanding of the period of Korean history still the most prone to retrospective political passions.

Let me begin with The Proletarian Wave, Sunyoung Park's thorough and thoughtful study of leftist culture in colonial Korea that pays particular attention to the impact and counterhegemonic function of literary production. “Leftist,” declares Park at the outset, is synonymous with “socialism-inspired” in her usage, where socialism refers broadly to “any political theory that joins a critique of modern capitalist society to an egalitarian...

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