New Book Alert: ‘A Nation Within’ Explores Hidden Lives of Korean Diaspora in Japan
The newest Studies title, co-authored by two Columbia alumnae, benefits from unusual access to an insular community who chose to stay in Japan after WWII.
A Nation Within: North Korean Zainichi in Postimperial Japan (Stanford University Press, 2026) by Sayaka Chatani (above) with KumHee Cho.
Today we’re excited to announce the latest title in our Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute series: A Nation Within: North Korean Zainichi in Postimperial Japan by Sayaka Chatani with KumHee Cho, out this week from Stanford University Press.
Associate Professor in the Department of History at the National University of Singapore, Sayaka Chatani is a historian of the Japanese empire and its aftermath. In A Nation Within, she and her co-researcher KumHee Cho provide an intimate and detailed history of the Chongryon: a subset of ethnic Koreans (zainichi) who chose to remain in Japan after World War II but whose leftist sympathies led them to support North Korea, Japan’s ostensible Cold War enemy.
The book is the result of years of archival research and more than 200 interviews. Because Cho is a Korean who was raised in Japan, and the granddaughter of a Chongryon official, Professor Chatani was afforded an unusual level of access to a close-knit, even insular community.
An early reviewer offered the following praise for the book this week:
“Even readers somewhat aware of the history of the Korean diaspora in Japan will learn much from this book.”
The co-authors are both Columbia alumnae. Professor Chatani received her PhD in History in 2014, and Cho (pictured, left) earned an MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures in 2013. A Nation Within is Professor Chatani’s second Studies monograph, following Nation-Empire: Ideology and Rural Youth Mobilization in Japan and Its Colonies, which Cornell University Press published in 2018.
We congratulate both scholars on the release of A Nation Within! Watch this space in the weeks and months ahead for more on the book, as well as further upcoming titles in the Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute series.