Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates the reception of “business novels”, a Japanese popular fiction genre, in 1970s-South Korea. Analysing the compilation Human management based on Kajiyama Toshiyuki’s work, I argue that this genre reflects the complicated relationship to former coloniser Japan.

Paper long abstract:

South Korea’s rapprochement to former colonising power Japan in the 1960s caused a translation boom of Japanese literature, which has not ceased since its onset and witnessed several transformations in its course. In the 1970s, it took the shape of a wave of “popular literature” from Japan that swept South Korea.

In this paper, I investigate a sub-genre of this popular literature, the so-called “business novels” (kiŏp sosŏl) that centred on salary men and enjoyed high popularity from their emergence in the 1970s through to the 1990s. Works by best-selling Japanese writers were compiled in multi-volume editions, which did not exist in this form in Japan and were edited to meet South Korean readers’ needs. More than just light entertainment, business novels were also marketed as manuals for how to succeed in a competitive world. Against the backdrop of high growth, this literature gave a voice to the hopes springing from the promise of easy money for the artful businessman but also the insecurities raised by capitalist competition and the fear of losing out.

This paper discusses by way of an example the 46-volume compilation In’gan kyŏngyŏng (Human management) published in 1974/75, which was based on a selection of pieces by best-selling author Kajiyama Toshiyuki and translated by Yi Kyŏngnam. Targeted at male readers and set within a male-dominated sphere of corporate competition, I argue that this genre provided an outlet for phantasies of achieving success as a self-made man in a country emerging as a player in the global economy. The genre also reflects how old colonial-period dependencies took a new shape as economic entanglement and Japan became a model to aspire to while at the same time, some critics fiercely rejected what they deemed the neo-colonial influence of Japanese popular literature. However, by comparing the compilation to the Japanese original texts, I will argue that Korean readers were by no means passive recipients of Japanese literature but rather appropriated it according to their own needs, as evidenced by the targeted editing of these works for the South Korean market.