Yang Sung-jin “Korean Literary Market Confronts Protracted Slump” http://e.sinchew-i.com/content.phtml?sec=2&artid=200704040009
http://eunheui.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2007/04/post_12dd.htmlにて知る。「うに」さんは「中国の英字新聞」と書かれているが、『星州日報』はマレイシアの新聞。韓国の「文学市場」の停滞の話。「文学市場」全体が縮小気味であるにも拘わらず、韓国では日本文学（ライト・ノヴェルから純文学まで）が売上を伸ばしており、日本の小説の翻訳は韓国の小説をマーケット・シェアにおいて逆転してしまったという。
興味深かったのは、韓国文学衰退の理由として、Jo Jung-raeという小説家が、韓国の小説家たちは「一人称語り（first-person narrative）」に拘って、「第三者的視点（third-person perspective）」を導入しないことを挙げている。「一人称語り」が駄目だと言われてしまうと、マルグリット・デュラスが好きな私としては文句の１つや２つはつけたくなるのだが、それは措いておく*1。ところで、「一人称語り」の小説といえば、日本文学のお家藝じゃなかったのか。所謂私小説の伝統。近代日本文学の主流を肯定するにせよ否定するにせよ、私小説への言及は回避できなかった筈。それが現在韓国で問題になっているとは！ ということで、韓国における「一人称語り」の伝統がどのような起源を有しているのかとか、そこに〈日本〉の影響はなかったのかといったことに興味を覚えた。
Arts & Culture: Korean Literary Market Confronts Protracted Slump
Updated:2007-04-05 13:50:33 MYTJo Jung-rae, a widely respected novelist, thinks Korean literary circles are missing a crucial point.
At a publication event held early this year, Jo summed up the crux of the problem: "Today's young writers do not practise a third-person perspective."
Jo's comment referred to what he calls a "deplorable" trend in which mainstream writers largely depend on the so-called first-person narrative, a convenient technique for investigating psychological or personal literary issues.
"When writers cannot depict a person from a third-person perspective, they are virtually trapped in a self-imposed boundary," Jo said.
Indeed, Korean writers and the publishing industry need to develop an objective third-person perspective because a slew of ominous signs threaten to undercut their already vulnerable foothold amid the growing public interest toward multimedia and the Internet rather than text-based storytelling.
The Korean Publishers Association said in a report that the domestic publishing industry produced a total of 45,221 titles in 2006, up 4.4% from a year earlier. But the market size shrank by as much as 12% to KRW2.69 trillion (USD2bn), reflecting the severe downturn that plagues the industry at large.
The gloomy statistics point to a pessimistic situation. Last year, publishers poured more resources into their book-making projects and put out more titles than 2005. But the local readers did not respond enthusiastically.
Not all publishing sectors are mired in a slump. Japanese novels are rapidly increasing their share of the domestic market, threatening Korean titles and writers.
The KPA estimates that about 4,300 titles, or 42% of all the translated books in 2006, were translations from Japanese to Korean. The figure suggests that Japanese books represent a dominant trend in the domestic publishing industry.
Kyobo Bookstore, Korea's largest offline bookstore, said Japanese novels carved out a 31% share in the Korean fiction market last year. In contrast, Korean novels secured only 23%.
The protracted and pervasive slump in the Korean publishing industry, coupled with the dramatic rise of Japanese novels, is alarming to writers, publishers and critics.
"There were some early signs of the decline of Korean novels in the past years, but writers did not pay much attention, continuing to stick to their own styles. Writers believed that things would remain the same, but the situation turned out to be far different," said Pyo Jung-hoon, a literary critic.
The initial attack came from cyberspace. Even back in the early 1990s, reading novels or poems was a legitimate entertainment activity.
Not any longer, especially after the Internet began to offer an overwhelming stream of information ranging from movies to blogs and news to a majority of households in Korea.
Writers and literary critics also blame video games and other multimedia toys for stealing precious time formerly reserved for reading serious novels. But blaming such non-literary factors is unlikely to reverse the trend.
The days when Korean novels often sold one million copies are gone. A new trend has local readers ignoring nationality when they browse and buy novels.
Chun Jeong-hwan, professor of Korean literature at Sungkyunkwan University, said Korean readers are becoming sophisticated, but writers do not realise the change.
"People now read books to enjoy something or get some help from a specific perspective, but mainstream writers are still preoccupied with ideological or nationalistic issues."
Bang Min-ho, a professor at Seoul National University, pointed to the diversified tastes of Korean readers. "In the past decade, Korea has undergone drastic social, political and economic changes. Accordingly, Korean readers came to have more diverse preferences and needs," Bang said.
He said that while Korean novels fail to fill the vacuum created by the increased needs of local readers, Japanese novels--with their diverse subject matter and depth--have settled quickly in the domestic market.
The unsettling phenomenon is that Korean readers are rushing to buy not only Japanese novels on light subjects but also serious literary works.
The soaring popularity of Japanese literature regardless of genre, meanwhile, highlights the problems facing the Korean publishing industry, critics said.
"The underling problem is not the sudden boom of Japanese literature but the slump of Korean literature," said Kwon Young-min, a literary critic.
"Korean writers should come up with new techniques and also sharpen their storytelling in a way that meets the diverse needs of readers."
Although many novelists are complaining about the downturn in the market, the genre itself is still alive and kicking.
According to the Korean Publishing Research Centre, the overall preference for novels is indeed steadily declining, but novels as a literary genre still exercise strong power in terms of sales in Korea.
Meanwhile, new-generation writers are making some innovative attempts to win back local readers who are rapidly shifting their focus toward trend-setting Japanese books and other foreign literature.
Park Min-gyu, for instance, has secured a significant number of fans through his humorous, gravity-defying writing style. Kim Ae-ran, a young female writer, is solidifying her literary position with her fantasy-driven narrative that resonates with the lonely and powerless urbanites. Lee Gi-ho is also breaking new literary ground with playful short stories peppered with fresh bits of satire.
Established writers are also trying to refine their storytelling techniques in line with the internet-oriented culture.
Jo Jung-rae is no exception. The 64-year-old epic novelist recently completed Oh My God, a novel about an ill-fated Korean man. Jo built his story on a single old photograph, whose existence incidentally was made known through the internet. (By Yang Sung-jin, The Korea Herald/ANN)
Sinchew-i 2007.04.05
上の記事では、専ら散文（小説）が採り上げられているのだが、以前、韓国通の知人から、韓国人は散文よりも詩を好み、韓国っていうのは詩集が売れる国なんだよという話を聞いたことがある。韓国に詩文はどうなっているのかと不図思った。
*1:映画においては、映像の〈一人称性〉がどれだけ確保されているかがその映画の質をかなり左右するのではないかと思っている。
