Booktopia has been placed into Voluntary Administration. Orders have been temporarily suspended, whilst the process for the recapitalisation of Booktopia and/or sale of its business is completed, following which services may be re-established. All enquiries from creditors, including customers with outstanding gift cards and orders and placed prior to 3 July 2024, please visit https://www.mcgrathnicol.com/creditors/booktopia-group/
Add free shipping to your order with these great books
Mater 2-10 : shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2024 - Hwang Sok-Yong

Mater 2-10

shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2024

By: Hwang Sok-Yong

Paperback | 30 May 2023

Sorry, we are not able to source the book you are looking for right now.

We did a search for other books with a similar title, however there were no matches. You can try selecting from a similar category, click on the author's name, or use the search box above to find your book.

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-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.

About the Author

Hwang Sok-yong was born in 1943 and is arguably Korea's most renowned author. In 1993, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for an unauthorised trip to the North to promote exchange between artists in the two Koreas. Five years later, he was released on a special pardon by the new president. The recipient of Korea's highest literary prizes, he has been shortlisted for the Prix Femina Etranger and was awarded the Emile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature for his book At Dusk. His novels and short stories are published in North and South Korea, Japan, China, France, Germany, and the United States. Previous novels include The Ancient Garden, The Story of Mister Han, The Guest, and The Shadow of Arms.
Industry Reviews
Praise for Familiar Things-
'A powerful examination of capitalism from one of South Korea's most acclaimed authors ... Hwang challenges us to look back and reevaluate the cost of modernisation, and see what and whom we have left behind.'
-The Guardian

Praise for Familiar Things-
'Hwang Sok-yong is one of South Korea's foremost writers, a powerful voice for society's marginalised, and Sora Kim-Russell's translations never falter.'
-Deborah Smith, translator of The Vegetarian

Praise for At Dusk-
'Having been imprisoned for political reasons, Hwang has a restrained, delicate touch, alive to the nuances of memory, the slipperiness of the past, and the difficult choices life forces us to make ... Subtly political, deeply humane, a story about home, loss, and the cost of a country's advancement.'
-Kirkus Reviews, starred review

More in Fiction in Translation

Until August : The Lost Novel - Gabriel Garcia Márquez

RRP $35.00

$31.75

The Master And Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov

RRP $11.95

$8.75

27%
OFF
Solo Leveling, Vol. 1 : Light Novel - Chugong

FREE SHIPPING

RRP $27.99

$22.50

20%
OFF
The Premonition - Banana Yoshimoto

RRP $29.99

$29.95

Killing Moon : The NEW Sunday Times bestselling thriller - Jo Nesbo
The Survivors : Karen Pirie - Alex Schulman

RRP $32.99

$30.25

I Went to See My Father : The instant Korean bestseller - Kyung-Sook Shin
The Boy and the Dog - Seishu Hase

RRP $32.99

$30.25

The Wolves of Eternity - Karl Ove Knausgaard

RRP $34.99

$31.75

Juja - Nino Haratischvili

Paperback

RRP $32.99

$30.25

The Mantis - Kotaro Isaka

Paperback

RRP $34.99

$31.75

The Preacher : Patrik Hedstrom : Book 2 - Camilla Lackberg

RRP $22.99

$21.90