Rethinking National and Transnational Literature in East Asia

The Literary Territorialization of Manchuria: Rethinking National and Transnational Literature in East Asia The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Xie, Miya Qiong. 2017. The Literary Territorialization of Manchuria: Rethinking National and Transnational Literature in East Asia. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:41141198 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA The Literary Territorialization of Manchuria: Rethinking National and Transnational Literature in East Asia from the Frontier A dissertation presented by Miya Qiong Xie to The Department of Comparative Literature in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Comparative Literature Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts April 2017 © 2017 Miya Qiong Xie All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Professor Karen Thornber Miya Qiong Xie The Literary Territorialization of Manchuria: Rethinking National and Transnational Literature in East Asia from the Frontier Abstract This dissertation studies modern Chinese, Korean, and Japanese literature written in and about Manchuria from the 1920s through the 1970s. Manchuria, now the northeastern part of China, was once an open frontier. In the first half of the twentieth century, it became a site of contestation and conflict among multiple countries. Along with the political and military rivalries that unfolded there, I argue that literature played an important role in the frontier contestation. At a time when legal territoriality defined by state sovereignty experienced frequent and radical turnovers, literary writers sought to engage with the process of a cultural territory-making through literature. In their writing in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, the writers developed various thematic and stylistic strategies that suited their circumstances and personal preferences. These strategies allowed them to claim the frontier space for the particular group of people with whom they identified. I call the writers’ literary engagement “literary territorialization,” a process in which frontier writers aimed to territorialize the frontier in ways that were more fluid and flexible but also more fragile than the establishment of legal territory. Through an investigation of a multilingual body of Manchurian literature, my work explores how frontier literature demarcates the nation in a web of translational connectivity. In the four chapters of my dissertation I discuss frontier writers who have had varying relationships to Manchuria. They include Manchuria-born Chinese writers who were exiled to China Proper after the Japanese takeover in 1932 and sought to reclaim the land through literature; iii a Manchuria-born Chinese writer who stayed during the Japanese Manchukuo regime (1932-1945) and engaged in transnational linguistic experiments as his form of literary territorialization; diasporic Korean writers in Manchuria who were constantly anxious about the issue of translation; and postwar Japanese repatriation literature by women survivors that deals with their traumatic withdrawal from Manchuria. In individual works, writers may choose to exclude or include characters, languages, and other cultural elements belonging to different groups. Ultimately, however, their textual choices are all different ways to embody their territorial consciousness regarding the frontier in literature. In a time when the frontier was still open to multinational rivalries, literary territorialization functioned to prepare or justify political and military competition for legal territorial rights, or else to compensate for their loss in Manchuria and elsewhere. And when the frontier was closed, former frontier writers used literature to represent and work through the traumatic experience caused by the process of deterritorialization. Methodologically, my work designates a common space as the ground for comparing literatures of different languages within the same region of East Asia. It also contributes to existing studies of East Asian national and transnational literature. In this dissertation, I offer fresh interpretations of classic texts of the national literatures of three East Asian countries from a transnational perspective. I also engage with current trends in transnational literary studies in East Asia, including Sinophone literature, Japanese colonial literature, and Korean diaspora literature. Ultimately, I argue that frontier literature serves as a bridge between national and transnational literature, because the essence of frontier literature is to claim a national space in a transnational geographic setting and with a strong transnational awareness. In addition, the smaller theoretical issues discussed throughout the dissertation include the spatial imaginary in literature, translation, and linguistic hybridity, among others. iv Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………… 1 Nationality and Transnationality in Literary Territorialization……………………………9 The History and Literature of Manchuria………………………………………………….18 Literature Review and Chapter Outlines…………………………………………………...30 Chapter One Recreating a Chinese Manchuria: Chinese Northeastern Writers Revisited…………...35 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………...…35 Yu Chengze: The Invention of Manchuria in Modern Chinese Literature………………...45 The Field of Life and Death: The Origin of Anti-Japanese Literature……………………..59 The Korchin Banners Plain: The Frontier in a Manchu’s Eye……………………………..87 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………...111 Chapter Two National Language, Frontier Subjectivity, and Sinophone Literature: On the Manchukuo Chinese Writer Gu Ding and His Novel New Life……………………………………….113 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….113 The Formation of Frontier Subjectivity…………………………………………………..118 Linguistic Hybridity and Literary Territorialization…………………………………...…136 The Transnational “National Language”………………………………………………….152 The Frontier and the Sinophone…………………………………………………………..177 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………...192 v Chapter Three Translating (on) the Frontier: The Korean Literature of Manchuria through the Lens of Translation…………………………………………………………………………………195 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….195 Manchuria: A Land of Significance………………………………………………………199 One Text, Multiple Claims: “The Red Hills” and Its Translations……………………….206 Confronting the Politics of (Anti) Translation: The Absence of Japanese Translation..…222 Intimacy and Distance: The Chinese Translation of An Su-kil’s “The Kitchen Girl”…....246 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………...259 Chapter Four The Meaning of Deterritorialization: The Representation of Kogoroshi in Japanese Repatriation from Manchuria……………………………………………………………262 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………262 Defining Kogoroshi in Repatriation…………………………..………….………………268 The Continental Bride and the Significance of Kogoroshi………………………………275 The Shooting Star Is Still Alive: The Offset in Early Repatriation Literature and Media..289 Dissociation and Reterritorialization: Kogoroshi in Repatriation and in Postwar Japan...299 Re-association and Reflection: Abortion in Repatriation and in Postwar Japan………....309 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………..321 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………323 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………….……336 vi List of Figures Figure 1. A Political Map of Manchuria ……………………………………………………… 21 Figure 2. Cover page of the column “The Chart on The Life during the Decisive War by Women of Five ethnicities” .………….…………………………………………..……… 250 Figure 3. Picture of Five ethnicities in Harmony………………………………………..…… 251 vii Acknowledgments I would like to express the deepest appreciation to my committee chair Professor Karen Thornber for her persistent support for my academic and life choices and her excellent guidance of my research and career development. I would like to thank my committee member Professor David Wang for offering me help, advice and encouragement beyond measure at critical moments in research and in life. I would also like to thank my committee member Professor Mark Elliott, whose insights and expertise in history have been my constant source of inspiration. Without their guidance and patience this dissertation would not have been possible. In addition, many thanks are due to scholars and friends in Asia and in Canada, who have shared their work, materials, ideas and memories with me without reservation. They are: Professor Liu Xiaoli, Professor Li Haiying, Professor Cui Yi, Professor Jin Huxiong, Li Zhengzhong, Li Qian, and Jin Haiyang from China; Emeritus Professor Ōmura Masuo, Emeritus Professor Okada Hideki, Professor Huang Ying-che, Professor Li Wen-ching, and Professor Ōkubo Akio from Japan; Professor Kim Chae-yong and Professor Sŏ Yŏng-ch'ae from Korea; and Professor Norman Smith from Canada. Their input substantiated and enriched my dissertation; their friendship offered me a sense of community throughout my research years. I would also like to thank Professor Tomiko Yoda, Professor Jie Li, Professor Jing Tsu, Professor Naoki Sakai, and Professor Satoru Hashimoto for reading parts of my dissertation or related

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