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Mater 2-10 : shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2024

Sok-yong, HwangBae, Youngjae Josephine(Translated by)Kim-Russell, Sora(Translated by)
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SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZEInternational 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-storey 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 labourers, 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.

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RRP £16.99
Product Details
Scribe Publications
1913348954 / 9781913348953
Paperback / softback
895.734
11/05/2023
United Kingdom
English
General
xiv, 474 pages
24 cm
Translated from the Korean.