Children are our future, our present: Dafna Zur

Interest in the Korean peninsula is generally very narrow in the United States - it tends to be focused on North Korea and security issues, particularly the country's ballistic and nuclear weapons developments. Given the security challenges, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but how do we begin to engage with a society that we don’t quite understand? What are the aspirations of the North Korean people? What is their world view?

Making the task particularly difficult, North Korea is a notoriously isolated country - doing field studies in the country is not an option. But there is one discipline that presents a window into the collective imagination and perceptions of the North Korean society: literature.

Dr. Dafna Zur joins Korean Kontext to address how literature can be used to better understand North Korea - and also tells us about the complex history of children’s literature on the Korean Peninsula. 

Also check out her lecture at the Library of Congress on science fiction in North Korea: https://youtu.be/mH8RPQWd-ho