하 진의 단편소설과 단순성의 미학

Ha Jin"s Short Stories and their Aesthetics of Simplicity

&nbsp;&nbsp;This paper is basically to introduce Chinese-American novelist Ha Jin who&quot;has been almost unknown to Korean readers. Jin is praised as "a master" who "can translate history into literature." It is Chinese history that Jin translates, but human universals transcending Chinese context are his major concern, as shown in his remarks: "the ultimate goal for a piece of literature is to transcend time to some degree, not to vacate it but to go through it." But Jin&quot;s subject matter might, more often than not, turn off some readers, for there appear a lot of brutal scenes like beating, rape, castration, electric bath, etc. One has to bear in mind, though, that he never opts to exploit violence but only uses it in order to reveal what it means to be human. "Man to Be," one of Jin&quot;s best stories, illustrates what he tries to accomplish through brutal scenes, in which a man gets back his decency and humanity as he looks into the eyes of the woman he is about to rape.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;This paper is ultimately to highlight simplicity, depth, and beauty of Jin&quot;s spare, economic prose as well as his effortless command of English language that, as one critic notes, "most writers can only dream about." These characteristics make Jin&quot;s fictional works reader-friendly, without sacrificing artistic depth and quality. This paper also suggests that serious scholarly attention needs to be given to Jin&quot;s &quot;classical&quot; works which have been critically acclaimed in other countries including the US and that teaching his works to Korean students can be highly rewarding.