Abstract

This article examines Jessie’s Diary, a unique parenting diary co-written by Korean Provisional Government (KPG) member Yang U-jo and his wife Choe Seon-hwa from 1938 to 1946. As intellectuals doubly displaced by Japanese colonial rule and wartime violence, their diary provides an intimate account of exile, family life, and survival. While existing scholarship has largely emphasized the diary’s historical significance in documenting the KPG’s experiences, this study foregrounds its literary dimensions, analyzing the form, conditions, and effects of writing. Placing Jessie’s Diary within broader literary discourse on modern diaries, this article identifies it as a diary of situation, sharing characteristics with late Joseon exile diaries and early Holocaust diaries of World War II. Through close textual analysis, this study explores how the diary functioned as a textual and material home, stabilizing the family amid displacement, reinforcing notions of modern familyhood, and preserving visions of the Korean homeland. Additionally, it demonstrates how the act of co-writing a parenting diary sustained both abstract and concrete hope during wartime upheaval. Bridging history and literary studies in its approach, this article highlights the significance of Jessie’s Diary for transnational scholarship on the meaning of self-writing under extreme conditions of war and exile.