South Korea
Entry updated 14 July 2025. Tagged: International.
(For sf activity before 1945, see the entry for pre-partition Korea.)
In South Korea, literary circles of the 1950s and 1960s generally favored realist, socially engaged fiction as the preferred vehicle for articulating political critique and cultural resistance, often viewing genre fiction – particularly sf – as escapist or didactic. As a result, native sf was typically relegated to the realm of juvenile literature, its educational function overshadowing its speculative potential.
Early engagement with sf began in the 1960s with the publication of Moon Yoon-sung's Perfect Society (1967), considered to be the South's first Korean sf novel; and the emergence of sf films such as Bulgasari (1962) – of which no known copy survives – Ujugoein wangmagwi (1967; vt Space Monster Wangmagwi) and Taekoesu Yonggary (1967; vt Yongary, Monster from the Deep), all being influenced by Japanese kaiju cinema. Yet under the military dictatorships of Park Chung Hee and Chun Doo-hwan, sf was treated alternately as children's edification and ideological tool. Robot Taekwon V (1976), an animated Mecha feature drawing unmistakable inspiration from Mazinger Z (1972; vt TranZor Z, 1985 US) (ironically, Japanese media was banned in South Korea till the turn of the century), served both as entertainment and as nationalist propaganda, embedding anti-communist themes into a brightly coloured frame of robotic heroism.
By the 1970s, sf began to take root as protest literature. Works such as Slipstream SF The Dwarf (1978) by Cho Se-hui (1942-2022) and Bok Geo-Il's Alternate History In Search of the Epitaph (1987) used speculative tropes to advocate for democratization, critique industrialization, urban alienation, and authoritarian violence. This protest sf allowed for imaginative escape from and resistance to the state-controlled reality that dominated literary discourse. Following the democratic transition of 1987 and the arrival of the digital era, South Korean sf experienced a renaissance across literature, Cinema, Television, and new digital forms.
The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis proved a formative shock, ushering in a wave of Dystopian fiction that Satirized neoliberal capitalism and social precariousness. Legend of the World's Superheroes (2003) by Park Min-gyu (1968- ) reimagined the Superhero trope as farce, staging Korean marginalization through characters like Bananaman ("yellow on the outside, white on the inside"), a marginalized Korean-American superhero relegated to mere posturing alongside the canonical figures of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman. Told from Bananaman's perspective, the narrative satirizes the imperial ambitions and neoliberal propaganda embedded in American superhero mythology (see Imperialism), highlighting the alienation and identity crisis of a protagonist caught between cultures. Blending black comedy, pastiche, and allegory, the story reimagines global pop culture as a mechanism of soft power, exposing how Cold War black-and-white narrative and capitalist ideology marginalize those outside the Anglophone center.
Another influential modern South Korean writer is the pseudonymous Djuna, a prolific writer whose real name and even gender remain unknown to the public. Their novel Counterweight (2021; trans 2023) situates its Cyborg protagonist, Mac, within a near-future Korea dominated by a powerful conglomerate constructing a Space Elevator on an Indonesian archipelago. Drawing on the speculative vocabulary of Western feminist sf while remaining rooted in Korea's patriarchal, hypercapitalist modernity, Counterweight retools Cyberpunk tropes to interrogate posthuman subjectivity and social control. Djuna's work exemplifies a turn in Korean sf toward queer, feminist, and politically subversive speculative fiction that critiques not only global systems of oppression, but the localized hierarchies of Korean society itself.
In print, a new generation of authors has emerged. Bae Myung-hoon (1978- ), Chung Serang (1984- ), Kim Bo-young (1975- ), Kim Cho-yeop (1993- ), Kim Un-Su and Jeong Soyeon (1983- ) blend genre forms with philosophical inquiry, often focusing on climate change, biotechnology, or social deviance. New institutions such as the Science Fiction Writers Union of Korea, established in 2017, and the magazine Onyl-ui SF ["Today's SF"], debuting in 2019 and described as South Korea's first SF Magazine (although a number of Fanzines existed previously) have further strengthened the field.
Korean literature had only a limited impact worldwide, with relatively few translations until recently. A turning point came with Kaya Press's Readymade Bodhisattva (anth 2019), the first English-language Anthology of Korean speculative fiction, which introduced Anglophone readers to a diverse selection of short stories by writers such as Bae Myung-hoon (1978- ), Jeong Soyeon (1983- ), and Park Seong-hwan (1978- ). Since then, several individual authors have gained international visibility. 2021 was a very good year for Korean sf in English. That year, Kim Bo-young's short stories were translated in two volumes: On the Origin of Species and Other Stories (coll 2021, trans by Sora Kim-Russell and Joungmin Lee Comfort) and I'm Waiting for You (coll 2021, trans by Sophie Bowman and Sung Ryu), offer philosophical and formally inventive tales that explore artificial life, cosmic recursion, and ethics beyond the human. Also, that year saw the English release of Bae Myung-hoon's Tower (2009; trans 2021), the first Korean sf novel to appear in English, bringing its interconnected speculative tales from a towering skyscraper-state to the Anglophone world. The aforementioned Counterweight (2021 trans 2023) by Djuna became the second Korean sf novel released in English, and was published by a major US trade house (Pantheon), marking Korean sf's arrival in mainstream sf literary channels.
Korean Horror and sf have often intertwined, continuing the tradition of the twentieth-century monster film. South Korean horror, particularly from the late 1990s onward, gained global acclaim for its stylistic innovation, genre hybridity, and sociopolitical subtexts. Films like Save the Green Planet! (2003) exemplify this hybridity, merging sf, horror, slapstick, and psychological thriller into an unclassifiable critique of trauma and conspiracy. Train to Busan (2016) and The Wailing (2016) likewise blur genre boundaries, utilizing Zombie and possession narratives to explore themes of class, nationalism, and existential dread. This hybrid mode extends into high-profile sf cinema: Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer (2013), based on a French graphic novel, imagines a post-apocalyptic class war aboard a perpetual train, serving as a trenchant allegory of social stratification and environmental collapse. Yeon Sang-ho's JUNG_E (2023) blends Military SF with melodrama and ethical dilemmas surrounding artificial intelligence (see AI) and Cloning, while Jo Sung-hee's Space Sweepers (2021), billed as Korea's first Space Opera blockbuster, infuses familiar genre tropes with a distinctly Korean ethos, foregrounding themes of Ecological ruin, Economic fragility, and surrogate kinship.
Further South Korean contributions to genre Cinema include the Kaiju vehicle Yonggary (1999; vt Yonggari; vt Yonggary: 2001 Upgrade Edition; vt Reptilian); Sky Blue (2003; vt Wonderful Days); the scatological sf comedy Aachi & Ssipak (2006); and the Japanese co-production 2009: Lost Memories (2002).
In television, Kingdom (2019) signalled another emergence point by blending Zombie horror with a Joseon-era historical setting, creating a genre hybrid that foreshadowed future innovations in Korean speculative storytelling. Squid Game (2021), though not strictly sf, drew on Dystopian survival tropes and achieved global acclaim for its sharp allegory of late capitalism and modern media. Other notable series include SF8 (2020) – often dubbed the Korean Black Mirror – an anthology of high-concept sf stories exploring AI, Virtual Reality, and social control, and the whimsical The School Nurse Files (2020), which follows a psychic school nurse detective who battles invisible jelly-like spirits, bringing an sf flair to the evolving landscape of K-dramas. Earlier contributions to television include Anyong Hanneunim ["Hello God"] (2006), an adaptation of Flowers for Algernon; Goong ["Palace"] (2006; vt Princess Hours; vt Princess, circa 2007); Byoreseo on Geudae ["You Who Came From the Stars"] (2013-2014; vt My Love from the Star); and Okja (2017).
Webtoons have proven particularly fertile ground for sf. Kang Full's Timing (2005) pioneered the genre within digital Comics, blending Time Travel and Mutant abilities with social allegory in a manner comparable to the X-Men. Other major webtoons include Solo Leveling (2016-2018), adapted into a well received anime in 2024, which merges fantasy RPG structures with dystopian futures, and The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor (2007-2019), a seminal web novel exploring economic hardship and digital escape through a fully immersive MMORPG. The growing popularity of webtoons marks a unique Korean contribution to global sf and comics culture, with serialized, interactive, and multimedia narratives thriving in a hybrid market of fandom and platform capitalism. The country is also a major centre for Videogame and Online Worlds development.
For the works of Korean-American sf authors covered in this encyclopedia, see Chang-rae Lee and Peter Tieryas, as well as the artist Anicka Yi. [PKo]
see also: Jaroslav Olša Jr;.
further reading
- Bastian Meiresonne. Hallyuwood: The Ultimate Guide to Korean Cinema (New York: Black Dog and Leventhal. 2025) [nonfiction: hb/]
links
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