In his research I. Jonathan Kief, a Korea Foundation post-doctoral fellow at the University of Michigan’s Nam Center for Korean Studies, explores an unconventional perspective on the relationship between writers in North and South Korea. Here, in the first of a two-part conversation, he discusses the real as well as imagined ways in which literature of the post-war period managed to cross the 38th parallel and attempts to outline a more complicated and nuanced understanding of what division literature has meant in Korea over the years. This episode was produced in collaboration with the University of Michigan’s Nam Center for Korean Studies. To find our more on Kief's research or to view other lectures from the Nam Center Colloquium series , visit https://www.youtube.com/user/umichncks/featured