When the South Korean Army Banned Friend by Paek Nam Nyong

Friend by Paek Nam Nyong (translated by Immanuel Kim, published by Columbia University Press) is the first English novel approved by North Korea’s regime. Published in 1988, it is a beloved classic there about characters caught up in marital strife and disappointed by their spouses, based on Paek Nam Nyong’s experience of sitting in on North Korean divorce hearings.

South Korea's defence ministry has included it in a list of 23 “seditious books” banned for reading in the South Korean army (among them are two by Noam Chomsky, a linguist with radical politics). This prohibition applies to all male citizens having 18 months or more of their mandatory military service left. The ministry’s apparent fear is that a sympathetic portrait of South Korea’s hostile northern neighbour could undermine soldiers’ resolve to defend their country.