The Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945 remains one of the most crucial, and yet occluded and misunderstood, periods of modern Korean history.

Often painted in black-and-white terms, the oppressive brutality of the Japanese is decried with righteous indignation, while the heroic resistance of the Korean people is extolled. Yet, other domestic struggles within Korean society — internal political divisions, the exploitation of commoners by the yangban (aristocracy), their active collaboration with the Japanese, the existence of slaves, the patriarchal family structure that enabled Korean men to have several wives, etc. — all get swept under the rug.

Thus, how ordinary Koreans lived their daily lives during this time remains something of a mystery, erased under the broad brushstrokes of a nationalist Korean discourse that would rather paint a simplistic picture in which all Koreans were innocent victims of Japanese subjugation.

Which is why the publication of an English-language translation of Three Generations is so important. Originally published in 1931 by the Korean writer Yom Sang-seop as Samdae, the novel is considered a classic today and a source of national pride for having been published during one of the darkest times in Korean history. By focusing on the domestic drama that takes place within the Jo family, the novel reveals the reality that, to some extent, virtually all Koreans had to compromise themselves under the colonial system, and the characters are refreshingly free of the exaggerated nationalism that emerged after liberation from Japan in 1945. Yom’s characters are simply immersed in their lives, and while Japan’s sinister presence lurks in the background as a pervasive reality, the tensions dealing with tradition versus modernity are grounded in the everyday. Some of the main characters speak Japanese and deal with the Japanese authorities simply as an accepted fact of life. The main protagonist, for example, is a student at a Japanese university, something that is presented as a matter of fact. Thus, the tensions depicted here lie not in resisting the Japanese, but in how the traditional Korean family structure that is steeped in strict Confucian values finds its very foundations falling apart in the face of Western and Japanese encroachment as Korea marches to modernity.

The title refers to the three men of the affluent Jo household. The stubborn grandfather, referred to as the “old man,” sees no value in Christianity or Western education if it means abandoning his cherished Confucian values: “If any bastard dared to offer up a Christian prayer for him after his death, he’d retrace his steps from the underworld and rip out the rogue’s tongue with his own hands.”
His estranged son, Sang-hun, is a 40-year-old, respected Christian church leader who has one foot in tradition and the other in modernity, but is ultimately unable to make the transition. Sang-hun considers himself a “modern” man, but he is still dependent upon the family’s finances for his livelihood. He is the rich, useless son of an outdated Confucian patriarchal system, relegated to playing cards, getting drunk and wasting time at kisaeng houses.