Arirang Literature Museum

Twenty thousand sheets of handwriting

Jo Jung-rae's novel Arirang filled roughly 20,000 sheets of 200-character manuscript paper. At the Arirang Literature Museum in Gimje, original handwritten pages sit alongside tightly filled research notebooks from the creation of a twelve-volume epic that took about four years and eight months to finish

The notebooks are the most revealing objects. Jo gathered testimony, place names and historical details while tracing families scattered far beyond Gimje. In the novel, tenant farmer Bang Yeong-geun is sent to a Hawaiian sugar plantation over a debt of twenty won. Another character, Song Su-ik, takes part in armed resistance against Japanese rule. Their separate journeys carry the story from the rice plain to Hawaii and Manchuria

The exhibits combine the original drafts with photographs, research notes and characters from the books. Even without having read all twelve volumes, a visitor can see how much investigation preceded the writing

Why this book belongs in Gimje

The broad Mangyeong plain was once a major Korean grain-producing region. During the Japanese colonial period, changes in land ownership and rice production left many farmers under pressure, while people moved or were sent far from their homes. The title comes from Arirang, Korea's widely sung folk song of parting and longing, which also carried memories of home and solidarity among Koreans living abroad. Jo borrowed the song's associations for characters driven from their villages and trying to preserve ties to Korea

Gimje City opened the museum on 16 May 2003 beside Byeokgolje, the remains of a large irrigation reservoir first built in the fourth century to supply rice-growing land. Its surviving earthworks show how long this plain depended on controlling water. Inside, the manuscripts show how Jo turned those fields and their people into a novel

The Arirang Literary Village is another site in Gimje, with recreated streets and buildings associated with the colonial years. This museum is the place for the writing itself: the draft, the notebooks and the author's working life

The writer and his working papers

Born in 1943, Jo Jung-rae grew up around Suncheon and Beolgyo and made his literary debut in 1970. His childhood experience of Korea's turbulent modern history later fed a sequence of vast historical novels: The Taebaek Mountains, Arirang and Han River. The museum brings together his research notebooks, portraits, personal belongings and editions of the books

Rows of handwritten manuscript sheets and working notebooks reveal the years of research and drafting behind the completed novel

Before you go

The museum is at 24 Yongseong 1-gil, Buryang-myeon, Gimje, beside the Byeokgolje cultural grounds. Admission is free. Opening is 09:00–18:00 from March to October and 09:00–17:00 from November to February; it closes Mondays and January 1. Parking is available

From Gimje Bus Terminal, buses toward Buryang, Hwaho, Pyeonggyo, Geumgang or Sangpyeong serve the Byeokgolje area, around 15 minutes away. The exact stop and return departure should be checked locally. A taxi from Gimje Station or terminal offers a simpler alternative. Museum enquiries: +82-63-540-3934