Born and raised in the colonial Korea Sinuiju, war-historical novel writer Komao Furuyama constantly presents his experiences through novels and essays and can be said to have focused on “War and Sinuiju” until his death. In this paper, Furuyama analyzed his colonial Korea/Korea, which was not well seen through a work called “Shin-Settaryeong”(1980), which describes the colonial Korea Sinuiju, where Furuyama was born and went to middle school, and his visit to Korea after the war.
The title of the “Shin-Settaryeong”(身世打鈴)is taken from the novel “ShinSettaryeong”(身勢打鈴) from the novel by Lee Hoi-sung, who won the Akutagawa Prize in 1971. The word, which has the meaning of both the search for the identity of Koreans in Japan and the true spirit of the victims by the Japanese colonial rule, is replaced by the original meaning of Korean and is used in Japan.
Furuyama borrows the word “Sinsetaryeong” related to the difficulties of the flowing life of Koreans in Japan and describes various thoughts and experiences about Sinuiju, colonial Korea, and post-war Korea as a boy. It seems clear that Furuyama, who was born and raised as a child of colonial first generation in
Sinuiju, Korea, and participated as a Japanese soldier in the Pacific War, felt “a sense of guilt and shame” about himself living in conformity with the society of accomplices called Japan after the war. His attitude to take responsibility for the emotion would have led him to devote his entire life to war fiction and Korea Sinuiju.
However, if Furuyama in his later years concludes everything by saying, “Life is a luck,” it can be said that his work as a novelist who focused on Korea, Sinuiju, and war will inevitably have clear limitations.
植民地朝鮮の新義州(シンウィジュ)で生まれ育った戦争私小説作家の古山高麗雄 は、自分の体験を小説とエッセイを通じて絶えず発表し、死ぬまで「戦争と新義州」 にこだわったと言える。 本稿では、古山はなぜ戦争を個人的な感想と運/不運の領域 でしか書けなかったのかという疑問から始まり、古山が生まれ、中学校まで通った朝 鮮の新義州と戦後の韓国訪問などを記述した『身世打鈴』(1980)という作品を通じて よく見えなかった彼の朝鮮/韓国(人)について分析してみた。
『身世打鈴』というタイトルは1971年に芥川賞を受賞した在日作家である李会成 (イ·フェソン)の小説に登場する「身勢打鈴」から取ったものだ。 在日朝鮮人のア イデンティティ模索と日帝による犠牲者に対する鎮魂の意味を同時に持つこの単語 は、韓国語の本来の意味から置き換えられ、日本で使われてきた。
古山は在日朝鮮人の流動する人生の苦難と関連した「身勢打鈴」という単語を借り てきて、自分の少年時代の新義州および朝鮮、戦後の韓国に対する様々な思考と経験 を叙述する。新義州(シンウィジュ)で植民地1世の子として生まれ成長し、太平洋 戦争に日本軍兵士として参戦した古山は、戦後日本という共犯者社会に順応して生活 する自分に対して「罪悪感と羞恥の感情」を感じていたことは明らかだ。 その感情に 対する責任を負おうとする態度が、彼を生涯にわたって戦争小説と韓国、新義州(シ ンウィジュ)に穿鑿させたのだろう。 しかし、晩年の古山が結局、人生は「運次第」 という言葉ですべてを結論づけるならば、朝鮮と新義州、戦争に穿鑿した小説家とし ての作業は明白な限界を持つしかないと言えよう。