[Literary Criticism] Portrait of a Socialist Next Door: Jeong Ji A’s My Father’s Liberation Diary / Lim Hong-Bae
The Quarterly Changbi 201, Autumn 2023
Abstract
Scholar of German literature Lim Hong-Bae contributes an article about Jeong Ji A’s My Father’s Liberation Diary, a widely popular recent novel. While going over the work’s achievements, Lim values in particular the possibilities of a new narrative interpretation of history embodied it, as well as the possibilities for local narratives that it embodies. Looking carefully at a large group of diverse individuals who attend the father’s funeral, and his personhood as depicted through their stories, Lim illuminates the character of a socialist, which has long been misunderstood politically and socially, and draws our attention to the deeply moving representation of a character‘s nature, which refuses to give in to destructive violence.