Descriptive rather than analytic in its approach, this article attempts to explore Taewon Koh’s immigrant autobiography, The Bitter Fruit of Kom-Pawi (1959), in terms of what has been called, “microhistory,” as a branch of the study of history since the 1970s. Her autobiography is different in some significant ways from other Korean immigrant autobiographies written by women. First of all, Koh’s book is the study of a small village, “Kom-Pawi,” located in the remote mountainside region of Kuwolsan in Hwanghae Province. Second, The Bitter Fruit can be seen as a microhistory in that it looks at an individual of minor importance in this case, Koh. On the surface, it is a mere memoir of a nameless Korean immigrant in America, who became separated from her children when the Korean War broke out and then, after desperate efforts, reunited with her children. A close reading of it, however, reveals much more about Korean society in particular and the geopolitical correlates of power in world politics in general. Third, Koh’s book seeks to blur the barriers between autobiography and fiction just as microhistoricists, or New Historists, have blurred history and literature. In conclusion, The Bitter Fruit by Taewon Koh is a significant contribution not only to Korean-American immigrant autobiographies, but to Korean-American literature as well.
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