[2] First introduced in his novella Rice Plant (Byeo), Manchuria represents the frontier in An Sugil's literary world, where the Korean peasants, ruthlessly driven out of their homeland by the Japanese colonial policies, must once again face poverty and inequality in addition to new challenges posed by the hostile natives and unfamiliar surroundings.
These qualities distinguish An Sugil's work from other immigrant tales set in Manchuria, such as Choi Seohae's "Red Flame" (Hongyeom) and Lee Taejun's "The Farmer" (Nonggun).
In Ahn's first collection of short stories, Northern Plain (Bugwon, 1943), problems relating to the establishment of a Korean school overshadows the conflict with the natives as the main source of strife in immigrant life.
A product of the author's penetrating historical consciousness, the novel realistically chronicles the plight of an immigrant family, which in turn mirrors the experience of the Korean people in general in the early modern period.
[3] With the publication of A Third Type of Man (Jesam inganhyeong, 1954), which includes the eponymous short-story as well as "A Traveler's Loneliness" (Yeosu) and "Green Chrysanthemum" (Chwiguk), An Sugil moved away from stories of immigrants to investigate the deterioration of social and individual morality during and after the Korean War.