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영어

According to some North Korean defectors, Paek Namryong’s Pŏt (Friend) caused a sensation among the North Korean readers in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This is not only because of the novelty of bringing a sensitive issue of divorce into the narrative, but also because Paek creatively depicts the raw human nature and emotions through the characters. While the narrative attempts to maintain the harmony of the nuclear family as the Party desires, Paek leaves his readers in the chaotic world of unresolved marital problems. Paek Namryong’s Pŏt is one of the few novels in contemporary North Korean literature that allows the readers to sympathize with the so-called “internal enemy of the state,” who is an individual with a higher obligation to herself rather than to the state.