탈공업화 시대의 문학적 재현 — 중국 신동북작가군(新东北作家群)과 반위(班宇) 문학

Abstract

This study focuses on the literary world of Ban Yu, a representative writer of the “New Northeast Writers,” a group that emerged in the aftermath of industrial decline and mass layoffs in China’s northeastern region. Amid the growing cultural attention surrounding what is now referred to as the “Northeast Literary Renaissance,” Ban Yu has established a prominent position by actively incorporating northeastern dialects and elements of popular culture into his narratives, portraying the collapse of local communities and the lives that follow. Through the use of dialect and black humor, he transforms the realities of Northeasterners into a distinct literary aesthetic and offers a new direction for generational narratives. His debut collection Winter Swimming vividly illustrates the core characteristics of his literature through seven short stories centered on the experiences of workers and their children during the mass layoffs of the 1990s. This study examines two key features in Ban Yu’s fiction—what may be called the “Northeastern aesthetic,” encompassing the region’s unique linguistic, emotional, and cultural elements, and the “gaze of the younger generation,” defined by silent, introspective perspectives toward the preceding generation. These features are not limited to Ban Yu’s individual literary style but represent foundational elements of the broader aesthetics of New Northeast literature. By organizing and analyzing the underexplored body of work by Ban Yu and the New Northeast Writers in Korean academia, this paper seeks to illuminate the literary rendering of emotional and cultural memory built upon the historical rupture of the mass layoffs. Furthermore, by exploring the linguistic vitality of the northeastern dialect, the narrative function of black humor, and the introspective gaze of the younger generation, this study positions Ban Yu’s work as a significant example that reveals the literary relevance and contemporary value of New Northeast literature within the context of the Northeast Literary Renaissance.