Kirjahaku

"Expert, idiomatic translation renders visible a story that helps explain the present weirdness in North Korea . . . T]he story with its great insight into the region, is deeply rewarding."--"Kirkus Reviews" "Vivid snapshots from the Korean War and surreal encounters with ghosts intersect in the first major US release by award-winning Korean novelist Sok-yong . . . an ambitious exploration of a postwar survivor's chaotic psyche."--"Publishers Weekly" "A provocative novel . . . with a subtle power. Hwang] takes the reader to the edge of a gruesome scene, then steps back and focuses on the sort of mundane detail that sticks in one's mind more firmly than any blood-splattered image."--"TIME""Asia Magazine" During the Korean War, Hwanghae Province in North Korea was the setting of a gruesome fifty-two-day massacre. In an act of collective amnesia, the atrocities were attributed to American military, but in truth they resulted from strife between Christian and Communist neighbors. Forty years later Ryu Yosop, a minister living in America, returns to his home village, where his older brother once played a notorious role in the bloodshed. Besieged by vivid memories and visited by the troubled spirits of the deceased, Yosop must face the survivors of the tragedy and lay his brother's soul to rest.

In 1993, writer and democracy activist Hwang Sok-yong was sentenced to five years in the Seoul Detention Center upon his return to South Korea from North Korea, the country he had fled with his family as a child at the start of the Korean War. Already a dissident writer well-known for his part in the democracy movement of the 1980s, Hwang's imprisonment forced him to consider the many prisons to which he was subject-of thought, of writing, of Cold War nations, of the heart. In this capacious memoir, Hwang's life is set against the volatile political backdrop of modern Korea, a country subject to colonialism, Cold War division, a devastating war, decades of authoritarian dictatorships, a mass democratic uprising, and a still-lingering, painful division between North and South. The Prisoner moves between Hwang's imprisonment and scenes from his life-as a boy in Pyongyang and Seoul, as a young activist protesting South Korea's military dictatorships, as a soldier in the Vietnam War, as a dissident writer first traveling abroad-and in so doing, braids his extraordinary life into the dramatic revolutions and transformations of Korean society during the twentieth century.

In a drab North Korean city, a seventh daughter is born to a couple longing for a son. Abandoned hours after her birth, she is eventually rescued by her grandmother. The old woman names the child Bari, after a legend telling of a forsaken princess who undertakes a quest for an elixir that will bring peace to the souls of the dead. As a young woman, frail, brave Bari escapes North Korea and takes refuge in China before embarking on a journey across the ocean in the hold of a cargo ship, seeking a better life. She lands in London, where she finds work as a masseuse. Paid to soothe her clients' aching bodies, she discovers that she can ease their more subtle agonies as well, having inherited her beloved grandmother's uncanny ability to read the pain and fears of others. Bari makes her home amongst other immigrants living clandestinely. She finds love in unlikely places, but also suffers a series of misfortunes that push her to the limits of sanity. Yet she has come too far to give in to despair - Princess Bari is a captivating novel that leavens the grey reality of cities and slums with the splendour of fable. Hwang Sok-yong has transfigured an age-old legend and made it vividly relevant to our own times.

A modern-day quest novel, by one of Korea's most renowned novelists. Princess Bari tells the story of a young girl, frail and brave, who escapes from famine and death in North Korea in the 1990s. Seeking refuge in China before crossing oceans in the hold of a cargo ship, she disembarks in London, with its bewildering mix of cultures, religions, and languages. In this foreign city, Bari finds work as a masseuse--but she doesn't just heal the body, she also comforts souls, having learnt from her beloved grandmother to read the pain and nightmares of others. Alone and in a strange land, Bari will have to fight, through pain and deepening sadness, to find love and the will to stay alive. With Princess Bari, Hwang Sok-yong entwines an old Korean myth, which tells of an abandoned princess travelling to the ends of the earth to find the elixir of life that will bring peace to the souls of the dead, with the ethereal and haunting backdrop of the modern world.

Facing a corruption investigation, and in the twilight of his life, a wealthy man begins to re-examine all. Park Minwoo is, by every measure, a success story. Born into poverty in a miserable neighborhood of Seoul, he has ridden the wave of development in a rapidly modernizing society. Now the director of a large architectural firm, his hard work and ambition have brought him triumph and satisfaction. But when his company is investigated for corruption, he's forced to reconsider his role in the transformation of his country. At the same time, he receives an unexpected message from an old friend, Cha Soona, a woman that he had once loved, and then betrayed. As memories return unbidden, Minwoo recalls a world he thought had been left behind--a world he now understands that he has helped to destroy. From one of Korea's most renowned and respected authors, At Dusk is a gentle yet urgent tale about the things, and the people, that we abandon in our never-ending quest to move forward.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE International Booker-nominated virtuoso Hwang Sok-yong is back with another powerful story--an epic tale that threads together a century of Korean history. In contemporary Seoul, a laid-off worker stages a months-long sit-in atop a sixteen-story factory chimney. During the long and lonely nights, he talks to his ancestors, chewing on the meaning of life, on wisdom passed down the generations. Through the lives of those ancestors, three generations of railroad workers, Mater 2-10 vividly portrays the struggles of ordinary Koreans, starting from the Japanese colonial era, continuing through Liberation, and right up to the twenty-first century. It is at once a gripping account of a nation's longing to be free from oppression, a lyrical folktale that reflects the blood, sweat, and tears shed by modern industrial laborers, and a culmination of Hwang's career--a masterpiece thirty years in the making. A true voice of a generation, Hwang shows again why he is unmatched when it comes to depicting the roots and reality of a divided nation and bringing to life the trials and tribulations of the Korean people.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE International Booker-nominated virtuoso Hwang Sok-yong is back with another powerful story--an epic tale that threads together a century of Korean history. In contemporary Seoul, a laid-off worker stages a months-long sit-in atop a sixteen-story factory chimney. During the long and lonely nights, he talks to his ancestors, chewing on the meaning of life, on wisdom passed down the generations. Through the lives of those ancestors, three generations of railroad workers, Mater 2-10 vividly portrays the struggles of ordinary Koreans, starting from the Japanese colonial era, continuing through Liberation, and right up to the twenty-first century. It is at once a gripping account of a nation's longing to be free from oppression, a lyrical folktale that reflects the blood, sweat, and tears shed by modern industrial laborers, and a culmination of Hwang's career--a masterpiece thirty years in the making. A true voice of a generation, Hwang shows again why he is unmatched when it comes to depicting the roots and reality of a divided nation and bringing to life the trials and tribulations of the Korean people.

Romanen handler om Herr Han som er lege og anser dette som et kall. Han blir innkalt som militærlege under Koreakrigen. Han nekter å favorisere partipampene og deres slektninger og faller derfor i unåde.

«Lasteplanet var fylt med avfall fra en søppelstasjon i storbyen, der tre menn og to kvinner i tillegg til gutten og mora hadde klatret om bord. Helt siden starten av turen hadde de vært omgitt av illeluktende avfall, og derfor la de ikke merke til den sviende stanken som bare ble verre og verre desto lenger inn på øya de kjørte. Først da lastebilene nådde toppen av den svingete bakken, merket de hvor vanskelig det var blitt å puste. Det stinket av avføring og kloakkvann, råtnende matrester, mugne, fermenterte soyabønner og gammel, ihjelkokt soyasaus - en uutholdelig blanding av alle tenkelige vonde lukter - og i mørket rundt dem - fryktløse, svermende, klistret til klærne, hendene og ansiktene, og særlig like rundt leppene og øynene - var det tett i tett med fluer.» En sen kveld en gang på 80-tallet er en ung gutt på vei til Blomsterøya sammen med mora si. Øya ligger midt i elva som renner gjennom en by som kan minne om Seoul i Sør-Korea, et land som på den tiden var i voldsom økonomisk vekst, men fortsatt styrt av et militærdiktatur. Faren til guttungen er en av mange som er forsvunnet, det vil si tatt av myndighetene og plassert på en «rehabiliteringsanstalt». Mora og sønnen er blitt lovet en ny start, men Blomsterøya er alt annet enn hva det idylliske navnet skulle tilsi: For selv om øya en gang var bebodd av bønder som levde i pakt med jorda, er det nå en diger søppelfylling bebodd av tusenvis av søppelplukere. Forkastet av samfunnet må mora og sønnen finne sin plass blant andre utstøtte og leve av det menneskene i storbyen kaster fra seg. Nær verden er en gripende og øm fortelling om fattigdom og utenforskap, men også om vennskap og samhold. Samtidig er den en bitende satire over et brutalt forbrukersamfunn som verken verdsetter tingene det produserer eller menneskene som konsumerer dem.

Fabrikkarbeideren Yi Jino klatrer opp i en 45 meter høy fabrikkskorstein i Seoul og slår seg ned der. Han har mistet jobben som en del av en masseoppsigelse, og i protest setter han seg - og blir sittende. I 410 dager holder han ut i kulde og ensomhet, mens kollegaene på bakken støtter kampen hans. I de kalde og mørke nettene hjemsøkes Yi Jino av slektens historier, som veves sammen med hans eget liv. Han kommer fra en familie av jernbanearbeidere og fabrikkarbeidere, som har kjempet seg gjennom et århundre preget av japansk kolonistyre, brutale diktaturer og politisk forfølgelse. Grandonkelen var kommunistisk aktivist og ble torturert av japanerne. Bestefaren organiserte streiker og måtte flykte til Nord-Korea. Faren var nær ved å miste livet under Koreakrigen. Bare bestemoren, den synske Geumi, klarte å holde familien samlet. Mater 2-10 er en episk og dypt menneskelig roman som spenner over hundre år av koreansk historie. Den er et portrett av arbeiderklassens kår og politiske kamper, og en gripende familiesaga om motstand, tap og triumfer - og om de sterke båndene som binder mennesker sammen i en splittet nasjon.