Reconstructing the Meaning of Women’s Short Fiction –Jeon Byeong-sun and the Limits of Yeoryu in 1960s Korea

Haeun, B. (2025). Reconstructing the Meaning of Women’s Short Fiction –Jeon Byeong-sun and the Limits of Yeoryu in 1960s Korea, 0(66), 162-194, https://doi.org/10.15686/fkl.2025..66.162

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Abstract

This paper examines Jeon Byeong-sun’s short fiction to reconstruct the literary-historical significance of women’s short fiction in the 1960s. Writing short fiction—a genre rarely associated with yeoryu (female writers)—meant engaging in literary practice outside the confined yet relatively safe boundaries of that label. Jeon Byeong-sun was among the few women writers who, by “writing from the outside, ” momentarily transcended the limits of yeoryu. This study does not seek to validate Jeon’s literary value through the evaluative framework of male writers who recognized her, but rather to rediscover her neglected work and reconsider its implications for the formation of women’s literature in modern Korean literary history. Ultimately, it aims to illuminate not the yeoryu literature defined and sanctioned by a male-centered literary field, but the women’s literature that lay beyond its horizon of recognition.

keywords: 전병순, 1960년대 여성 문학, 여성 작가, ‘여류’ 문학, 단편 소설, Jeon Byeong-sun, women’s short fiction, 1960s women’s writing, yeoryu, women writers

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Article Contents

No.66

Reconstructing the Meaning of Women’s Short Fiction –Jeon Byeong-sun and the Limits of Yeoryu in 1960s Korea

Abstract

Feminism and Korean Literature