Whale: SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2023

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The book that comes to mind as a comparison is Gabriel Garcia Marquez's ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE - though the tone of the two books is very different - SOLITUDE being almost a dream-like magical realism in comparison to WHALE's earthy, uninhibited one. Blending betrayals worthy of film noir with harrowing stories of corruption and abuses of power, Whale shifts wildly in tone but is never less than compelling. Even at a distance she could see the remnants of the movie theater looming up among the buildings, resembling a large whale breaching the surface for a breath. The narrow path that led from the underpass below the train tracks to the brickyard, overtaken by weeds, had vanished from sight long ago. This year’s winner will be announced on 23 May and the judging panel have produced a strong shortlist with a distinctive flavour: four brightly coloured, zestful novels and two, more restrained stories on the theme of motherhood.

Whale by Cheon Myeong-Kwan: 9781953861146

She heard the prison guard who tormented her, whispering, Berkshire, a region in England famous for its pigs. Chi-Young Kim is a literary translator and editor, who trained as a lawyer before taking up translation, initially as a hobby. Kwan unleashes a tide of feral characters, many of them women with an almost primal hunger for survival that are plucked from the landscape of his imagination that ranges from a small village in a remote mountain valley to a fishing village in South Korea. What is the significance of the whale in Cheon’s novel and how do you think it relates to - or differ from - iterations of whale symbols in other artworks?Set in a remote Korean village, Whale follows three mythical characters with interlinked lives: Geumbok, who has been chasing an indescribable thrill ever since she first saw a whale crest in the ocean; her mute daughter, Chunhui, who communicates with elephants; and a one-eyed woman who controls honeybees with a whistle. What did you make of the depiction of the two women’s bond and of the novel’s examination of womanhood in South Korean society more broadly? Cheon Myeong-kwan’s novel Whale was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023, announced on April 18 2023. she would say, Life is sweeping away the dust that keeps piling up, as she mopped the floor with a rag, and sometimes she would add, Death is nothing more than dust piling up.

Whale by Cheon Myeong-Kwan | Goodreads

Blending betrayals worthy of film noir with harrowing stories of corruption and abuses of power,Whaleshifts wildly in tone but is never less than compelling. Geumbok tortures and neglects the second protagonist, her mute daughter, who gets a storyline of her own. Vigdis Hjorth’s Norwegian novel about a mother and child Is Mother Dead is translated by Charlotte Barslund. Originally published in 2007, While We Were Dreaming, about three friends growing up in Leipzig at the time of reunification, is Meyer’s debut novel. On the morning of the ninth day, she spotted the brick kilns lined up like matchboxes, beyond the tracks.

I felt like I was reading a time-honoured epic, and it was so twisty and detailed, but never draggy or difficult.

Whale by Cheon Myeong-Kwan | Goodreads Whale by Cheon Myeong-Kwan | Goodreads

Peake, who channelled his experiences as a child fleeing the collapse of Chinese life before the tsunami of Mao Tse-tung, into the first three parts of his unfinished series of novels Gormenghast, once wrote: “As I see it, life is an effort to grip before they slip through one’s fingers into oblivion, the startling or the ghastly or the blindingly exquisite fish of the imagination before they whip away on the endless current and are lost forever in oblivion’s black ocean. Short stories are not usually my cup of tea but this one was done so artfully and cleverly that it's hard not to love.Set in a remote village in South Korea, Whale follows the lives of three linked characters: Geumbok, an extremely ambitious woman who has been chasing an indescribable thrill ever since she first saw a whale crest in the ocean; her mute daughter, Chunhui, who communicates with elephants; and a one-eyed woman who controls honeybees with a whistle. Still Born explores those aspects of motherhood that have often gone untold in uncompromising writing that feels throughout as though it’s being narrated in confidence to a close friend. A carnivalesque fairytale that celebrates independence and enterprise, a picaresque quest through Korea’s landscapes and history, Whale is a riot of a book. The business-savvy, matter-of-fact woman adapts to the expanding capitalist system by starting several enterprises, the most ambitious one being the cinema in the form of the title-giving whale.

Whale - Archipelago Books Whale - Archipelago Books

Winner of the Booker Prize 2022, Shehan Karunatilaka’s rip-roaring epic is a searing, mordantly funny satire set amid the murderous mayhem of a Sri Lanka beset by civil war. It is also symbol embodied in the physicality of Chunhui herself and in the shape of the cinema Geumbok wishes to build.Aside from its magical-realist qualities, the book is also notable for its unvarnished depiction of violence and brutality against its central protagonists.