This study examines the representation and literary-historical significance of labor literature in the 1980s and 1990s, focusing on poems by the Workers’ Literature Association published in Nodonghaebangmunhak. As a nationwide platform, the magazine...
This study examines the representation and literary-historical significance of labor literature in the 1980s and 1990s, focusing on poems by the Workers’ Literature Association published in Nodonghaebangmunhak. As a nationwide platform, the magazine played a meaningful role in raising awareness of the Association’s activities and in expanding regional literary movements into a national phenomenon. The Association’s writings functioned as a form of self-representation for the working class, challenging the established modern literary order under the banner of labor emancipation. Furthermore, the Association connected the universal ideal of working-class liberation with local popular events, reconstructing the history of struggles for popular emancipation and broadening the social and historical significance of labor literature.