The Korean War Novel: Rewriting History from the Civil War to the Post-Cold War

The Korean War Novel examines the ways that novels written by Korean and Asian American writers have represented the Korean War. By studying the ideological contours of works by Richard E. Kim, Ahn Junghyo, Susan Choi, Ha Jin, Choi In-hun and Hwang Sok-yong, it documents the range of historical narratives that have alternatively framed the Korean War as an international war, a civil war, a reverse postcolonial war or ’proxy war’, a war between the genders, and an attempt to de-escalate the Cold War itself. The dual role of North East Asians as both victims and willing agents of the Cold War comes into focus in revisiting the conflict from the post-Cold War perspective of decolonisation. Suk Koo Rhee writes back against the authoritative version of Cold War historiography to explain the contemporary nature of the unfinished conflict on the Korean peninsula today.