Kim Tong-ni. Red Clay Tales

Publication details not specified. — 21 p.Kim Dong-ni. Legends of the red earth (In English)Kim Tong-ni (1913-1995) was a Korean writer.
Kim’s work deals with traditional and native Korean themes from a 20th-century perspective . As a right-wing writer and advocate of “pure literature,” Kim Dongri produced a series of critical essays opposing ideological literature, including The True Meaning of Pure Literature (Sunsu munhagui jinui, 1946) and The Theory of National Literature (Minjok munhangnon, 1948).
Kim Dong-ni’s literary world, characterized by a mixture of traditional mysticism and humanist realism, investigated the idea of fate and man’s place in the universe through the spiritual world of Korean tradition as it collided with foreign culture. His early works such as "The Portrait of Shaman" (Munyeodo, 1936), "The Post Horse Curse" (Yeongma), and "The Legend of Yellow Earth" (Hwangtogi) draw heavily on elements of traditional myth to explore the relations between shamanism and Confucianism, Christianity and Buddhism, fatalism and naturalism. "The Post Horse Curse" portrays a man’s rebellion against and eventual acceptance of his fate as a wanderer; "The Portrait of Shaman," which was later expanded into a full-length novel entitled Eulhwa, depicts a conflict between a shaman mother and a Christian son. In the mother’s suicide, the narrative predicts the decline of shamanism and ascendancy of newly imported Christianity.