The Republic of Korea is red-hot right now. In the widely memed words of Korean American multi-hyphenate Jay Park, we live in the age of “BTS, Bong Joon-ho, Son Heung-min . . . Jay Park!” South Koreans are finally receiving the foreign validation they have sought since the founding of the nation-state in 1948. 

Yet Korean Koreans (as we diasporics sometimes call them) dream of leaving, nay, escaping the divided peninsula through immigration or death. Referring to South Korea as “Hell Joseon” is so 2015, but the enmity behind this satirical term remains relevant. This general state of despair stems from a multitude of interdependent sociopolitical issues ranging from academic elitism to regionalism. This special feature is an attempt to counteract the latter. 

The Republic of Korea is so centered around its capital that it engendered the snide neologism, the “Republic of Seoul.” More than half of the population and nearly 90 percent of large companies are crammed inside the metropolitan area. There is a widespread belief that those outside have “failed” to enter Seoul, and thus “deserve” limited access to infrastructure including cultural spaces, educational institutes, medical services, and transportation. In this way, mobility is an issue of class and disability. 

As a new transplant to New York City, I know well that this is not a problem unique to Seoul. But scholars stress that the situation in Korea is unprecedented even by global standards. According to Jang Ho-soon of Soon Chun Hyang University, the centralization of Seoul originates from the colonial period, when the Empire of Japan established the Japanese Government-General of Korea inside the grounds of Gyeongbokgung Palace. The elites with their vested interests, naturally with deep roots in Seoul, maintained this inequity throughout the industrialization and digitalization of South Korea. 

Moreover, Seoul-centrism suppresses linguistic diversity. Given that regional dialects remain metonymic for political orientation, transplants are pressured to shed their dialects and assimilate in order to avoid discrimination. I find it admirable how BTS, with members from all over the country (and none from Seoul), has overcome generations of regional enmity by respecting their cultural differences in a subversive call for democracy. A song on their second album, “Where You From,” showcases pickup lines in each of the members’ hometown dialects. Together they sing, “I don’t care whether you came from the moon or the stars / You and I are one . . . We can’t help but fall in love.”

In planning this special feature, I focused on curating motley regions, generations, styles, and relationships to the literary establishment in Seoul. Our poets are Hwang Geum-nyeo, born in 1939 in 

Jeju Special Self-Governing Province; Lee Seong-bok, born in 1952 in Sangju, Gyeongsang Province; Ra Heeduk, born in 1966 in Nonsan, Chungcheong Province; Heeum, born in 1975 in Busan, Gyeongsang Province; Song Seung Eon, born in 1986 in Wonju, Gangwon Province; Kim Bokhui, born in 1986 in Jindo, Jeolla Province; and Gye Mihyun, born in 1997 in Incheon Metropolitan City. With the notable exception of the Jeju native, all six poets moved to Seoul before formally publishing poems and, to my knowledge, continue to live in Seoul. Some of the more stylistically (that is to say, politically) radical poets’ works are ignored by major publishers or even traditional publishing as a whole. Herein lies the irony of poetry—the real punks get imprisoned and/or die young. And the rest of us try, not without shame, to memorialize the light they shone on the world. 

Some readers may also problematize my inclusion of two poets from Gyeongsang to one from Jeolla, for which I apologize. Another point of consideration was to feature translators at different stages of their careers, with varying relationships to South Korea and its written language. Some were born there and some abroad, some immigrated away with family while some visited voluntarily as adults, et cetera. Most importantly, all seven translators (including myself) had been working with these poets before this special issue. I believe this camaraderie to be the fun in being contemporaries! Let us stop competing unnecessarily and instead fight against what oppresses us all . . . 

Literary scholar, critic, and linguist Youngmin Kwon, in my translation, defines Korean literature as “literature written in Korean by Koreans expressing the thoughts and emotions of Koreans.” His definition is one that invites further definition. What is Korean? Who is Korean? Who decides who gets to be Korean? Korean in relation to what else? 

The field of linguistics takes a descriptive approach to language rather than upholding a prescriptive grammar that precludes fluctuation and evolution. In turn, we must describe the changing demographic of Koreans that includes adoptees, migrants, and refugees. The multiracial and diasporic. My humble hope is for Korean literature to become increasingly funky and impossible to pin down.