芥川賞作家이회성 リ・カイセイさん死去 89歳 Akutagawa Prize-winning Author 이회성 RI Kaisei passed away at the age of 89. R.I.P.

Novelist RI Kaisei 이회성, who became the first foreign recipient of Japan’s prestigious Akutagawa Literary award, passed away 10 days ago at the age of 89.

The reason why I am using, amongst his many different names, RI Kaisei has to be understood in the context of his German Wikipedia Page, see the link.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ri_Kaisei

Against the backdrop of democratic-capitalist South Korea and fascist-communist North Korea, Ri depicted love and fading ethnic identity across generations in his novels and essays that captured the lives of Koreans in diaspora or scattered all over the world.

The ground-breaking decision by the Akutagawa Literary award selection committee resonates the atmosphere of the 68’s. With this award in 1972 for “The Cloth Fuller” (砧をうつ女) Ri became the first foreign recipient. For me a welcomed opportunity to point out, that until now, I, as a Japanese artist, did not receive any art related prize in Japan. A scandalous situation, indeed.
Regarding Ri, as a “Zainichi” then “Korean”, the family background has to be understood as the Condizione Umana for most of his writings. Me, a human being with a European Passport, can very much relate to his problematic feeling and challenging views. One of the discourse topics in Japan lies in the use of the word “Zainichi” (在日), because I regard myself as a “Zainichi”.
To add another point of view about Korea, I may hereby repeat, that I, as a former West-German, am the first person in the world, who published a text-photo-book about the Korean Peninsula.
Ri’s works, such as “Shonin no inai kokei” (証人のいない光景 ‘A scene without witnesses’), “Matafutatabi no michi” (またふたたびの道 ‘The road again’), “Kayako no tameni” (伽倻子のために ‘For Kayako’) and others, thus demonstrated to the Japanese reader that Zainichi Korean Emperor-centered fanaticism, the Zainichi Korean father-son relationship or the struggle for a subjective identity were all informed by the historical trauma Koreans experienced as a result of colonialism and oppression within Japanese society.
In this regard I may, together with my dear readers of ART+CULTURE, suggest a hypothetical discovery of parts of Feminism in Ri’s writings.
Ri later experienced a sort of criticism for gratuitously flaunting certain ‘divisive’ political views and found himself embroiled in political controversy, particularly when he adopted South Korean nationality in 1998.
Nevertheless, Ri’s practice has to respected as a pioneer work, because the constantly, evolutionary prolongation of the terminus “Zainichi Korean Literature” takes up Japanese Colonialism, Post-colonial oppression in Japan, the Korean War, Tenno-Japanese Empire defeating Russia Empire in 1905, Germany-Italy-Japan Fascism, Allied Forces, Western Colonialism, Chinese inner politics and Genghis Khan War Empire History, Ottoman War and Empire, Korean political affairs with dictatorships, Identity vs Race vs Gender vs Ethnicity, Nationalism and Inter- and intra-generational struggles.

이회성 RI Kaisei, me, as a Japanese artist in Japan, as a foreigner, can very much relate to your painful, writing practices. Finally you may Resta in Pace.
東京 Tokyo, 令和 Reiwa 7, 15th of January
Mario A 亜 真里男