Description

LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE

International Booker-nominated virtuoso Hwang Sok-yong is back with another powerful story – an epic, multi-generational tale that threads together a century of Korean history.

Centred on three generations of a family of rail workers and a laid-off factory worker staging a high-altitude sit-in, Mater 2-10 vividly depicts the lives of ordinary working Koreans, starting from the Japanese colonial era, continuing through Liberation, and right up to the twenty-first century. It is at once a powerful account that captures a nation’s longing for a rail line to reconnect North and South, a magical-realist novel that manages to reflect the lives of modern industrial workers, 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 grief of a divided nation and bringing to life the cultural identity and trials and tribulations of the Korean people.

Publisher Review

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