ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

Hwi Sunwoo’s the Return(1954) is the most extensive text recording the experiences of Korean prisoners of war. It is actually the only South Korean repatriation prisoner published in the 1950s. This study aims to examine the characteristics and significance of reportage literature inherent in the Return, the epistemological connection between Hwi Sunwoo’s fictions and the Return, and the intertextuality of the Return on the post-war novel landscape. The counter-construction of anti-communist ideology represented by communism or humanism was the world perception inherent in Hwi Sunwoo’s works. The initiative is identified at reportage the Return. It is a physical proof that the Return is a text that corresponds to the starting point of Hwi Sunwoo’s fiction creation. Hwi Sunwoo intensively published works based on the Korean War in the 1950s and 1960s. As a source of the creation, Hwi Sunwoo has led his activities in the ‘Daehan Detention Team’. The experience, which was not very long, led to a small number of creative achievements. Hwi Sunwoo’s works depicting the situation on the battlefield was usually the result of indirect experiences. Prior to the writing of the Return, Hwi Sunwoo’s interview data with repatriated prisoners and their writings were the likely sources. These are cited as the main motif of the creation of fictions by other writers. The representative work is Young-joon Park’s “the sea near Yongcho Island” which adapted part of the Return. The Return, projected with anti-communist ideology, can be said to be a text that pre-defined Hwi Sunwoo’s intention to create a fiction. In addition, it also has the historical value of the Korean War POW reportage. Furthermore, considering the direct and indirect impact on the topography of post-war fictions, its literary historical significance is not small. This is why this study focused on the Return as a text that embraced the history of the Korean War in the literary field.

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