On Branding Korean Fiction

I recently heard a rumor (unsubstantiated, but hey, what are blogs for...) that some savvy Korean literary agent with connections in New York is trying to sell certain Korean books with psychologically unbalanced female protagonists, thinking the theme has a certain sexiness and cachet (i.e. commercial value).

This worries me.

Conversations about making Korean literature more popular and salable usually revolve around creating a "brand" for Korean literature. Once a brand is created, then it would become easier to peddle other Korean texts as well. Looking a little ahead, we see that the advantage would only exist for works that fall in line with what the brand stands for.

Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club is commonly cited as a text that seems to very blithely Orientalize itself for the mainstream American audience. The damage is very real for a young generation of Asian-American writers whose task is to somehow counter or grudgingly find a companion in a text they cannot abide, only because it has left such an indelible mark on the mainstream consciousness. Order matters.