What if Korea were more than a divided peninsula—what if it represented three distinct literary and cultural worlds? That question drives Once Upon a Time There Were Three Koreas (Il était une fois trois Corées), a new French-language anthology curated by veteran Korean literary translator Patrick Maurus.
The collection brings together 13 stories from North Korea, South Korea, and the Korean diaspora in China’s Yanbian Autonomous Prefecture, illustrating what Maurus argues are three divergent Korean identities shaped by ideology, geography, and history.
At the heart of the anthology are six rarely translated stories from North Korea. These works offer a unique glimpse into the Juche-inflected realism of the DPRK, in stark contrast to the irony-laced, Western-influenced narratives of the South and the hybrid cultural perspectives found in Yanbian. The result is a complex literary map of Korean identity, one that challenges the conventional notion of a temporarily divided nation.
A Literary Map of “Three Koreas”
Maurus, professor emeritus of Korean language and literature at INALCO (National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations) in Paris, expands here on the thesis first explored in his 2018 nonfiction work, Les Trois Corées. In that book, he argued that Korea should be viewed not as a single country split in two, but as three culturally and ideologically distinct entities: South Korea, North Korea, and the Korean community in China.
The cover of the 2023 edition of the new anthology features a map that reflects this argument. It highlights Yanbian, the DPRK, and the ROK in separate colors within Northeast Asia, suggesting a geopolitical and cultural reimagining of the Korean peninsula and its surrounding diaspora.
Structure and Themes
The anthology is divided into five sections, each focusing on a different region or historical period. Two sections bookend the collection temporally—starting with stories set during Korea’s colonial period under Japanese rule, and ending with contemporary narratives that reflect today’s divided realities.
Between them, three sections are dedicated to the literature of Yanbian, North Korea, and South Korea, respectively. Each section reveals the distinct literary sensibilities of its region. The DPRK contributions, for example, reflect what Maurus calls “Juche realism”—a form of fiction that simultaneously depicts the world as it is and as it ought to be, according to socialist ideals.
Among the featured DPRK authors are:
Han Sol Ya, whose story “Jackals” (1951) portrays the brutal oppression of Koreans by Japanese police and American missionaries during colonial rule.
Paek Nam Ryong, author of “On Leaving Work” (1985), in which a young factory worker matures through the mentorship of war veterans and workplace elders.
Choe Song Jin, whose “A Warm Sea” (1983) centers on an orphan embraced by his new farming community.
Jang Gi Song, represented by two stories: “Snow Falling in Large Flakes” (1973), a tale of military perseverance during the Korean War, and “Three Brothers” (1984), about the moral lessons of family responsibility.
Ri Sin Hyon, with “Spirit of Kanggye” (2002), an excerpt that portrays Kim Jong Il driven to action by national suffering during the Arduous March.
These works contrast sharply with Southern stories, such as Hwang Sun Won’s “Time for You and Me” (1958), where ROK soldiers experience a breakdown in solidarity—an inversion of the unity emphasized in Jang’s military narratives.
Diverging Literary Worlds
Maurus juxtaposes Ri Sin Hyon’s “Kanggye Spirit” with Pak Min Gyu’s postmodern South Korean story in the anthology’s final section. Pak’s narrative, steeped in references to American pop culture and Western literary trends, reflects the globalized, individualistic concerns of contemporary South Korean fiction.
By contrast, Ri’s work is more conventional in form, deeply nationalist, and focused on collective endurance—a hallmark of DPRK storytelling.
Through such comparisons, Three Koreas offers compelling evidence for Maurus’s central argument: that the literary outputs of North Korea, South Korea, and the Korean diaspora in China represent not variations of a single tradition, but distinct expressions of separate Korean realities.
Translation and Recognition
Maurus not only edited the anthology but also served as its principal translator. He was supported by a team of five others, including Benoît Berthelier, who co-produced the English-language DPRK collection Hidden Heroes earlier this year with scholar Immanuel Kim.
While Three Koreas stands as a remarkable feat of scholarship and translation, it omits detailed profiles of its translators—an oversight that diminishes recognition of the labor involved in making Korean literature accessible to new audiences.
Several stories from a 2016 French anthology of North Korean literature have since been published in English via Hidden Heroes. Readers and scholars alike may hope that more works from Maurus’ new collection will eventually be translated into English, offering broader insight into this often-overlooked dimension of Korean literature.
