From the Detective to the Romance Genre: Popular Fiction in Postcolonial Korea

Abstract

This chapter explores the popular romance novel Aein (The Lover, 1954–1955), written by the famous writer of detective fiction Kim Naesŏng (1909–1957). The Lover was the first romance novel illustrating the new concept of romantic love in postcolonial Korea, but its inclusion of the conventions of the detective novel and its depiction of colonial culture also made the narrative uniquely hybrid. This chapter pays particular attention to this hybridity in Kim’s engagement with literary genre—his writing of a romance novel that has a morally didactic view of romantic love like in detective fiction while simultaneously portraying colonial culture. Rather than following conventional readings that have emphasized Kim’s complete turnaround from a detective writer to a romance writer, this chapter complements recent studies that have framed Kim as a popular literature writer, highlighting the traces of continuity between his pre- and post-1945 writing practices.