Plotting Colonial Independence: Intra-Asian Conflict in the Novels of Richard Kim

Over the past fifteen years, Asian American studies has experienced a resurgence of interest in pioneering Korean American author Richard E. Kim. This interest stems in part from the disciplinary shifts in the field brought about by the transnational turn. Yet Kim’s novels argue implicitly for a mode of reading Asian American literature that is not merely transnational but also intra-Asian, prompting us to rethink the geographic boundaries of Asian American literary studies to account for a history of conflict among Asian nations—specifically the history of colonial conflict between Korea and Japan. This essay takes a critical approach that combines sustained attention to the historical context of Japanese imperialism with a narratological attention to the specific formal techniques Kim employs—the figure of the report, indirect invocations of a hidden resistance, and the strategic use of gendered metaphors—to transform Japanese, Korean and US colonial history in ways that subtly reimagine Korea’s history of colonial subjugation. Kim’s novels rewrite the colonial history of East Asia, symbolically enacting the overthrow of Korea’s colonial oppressors and depicting a powerful and fully sovereign Korea. In the process, Kim’s work demonstrates the value of expanding transnational Asian American literary study beyond a narrow focus on the projection of US power abroad. This changed transnational perspective decenters the United States as a necessary and inevitable geographical point of orientation, opening up new avenues of interpretation for ethnic US literature.