Whale: SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2023

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Whale is my first novel. As I wrote it quite a long time ago, I’m stunned that it’s shortlisted for the International Booker Prize this year, and that makes it all the more exciting. The publication of Whale changed my life, and it feels like Whale is still a propulsive force in my life. Chi-Young is a skilled translator who’s had a long career, so I was very happy that she was translating my novel. I trusted her completely and didn’t feel the need to share any particular thoughts. I don’t personally know her work since I don’t speak English, but my agent and others have all told me that it’s excellent—I’m thrilled and grateful. John Updike’s Rabbit, Run. Before this, the books I read when I was young followed remarkable lives. Stories about adventure and romance, hardship and adversity, struggle and triumph. What I realised when I read this novel at 18 was that, for the most part, not much happens in life. And while that truth was very disappointing, it was also oddly a relief. Cheon’s sprawling, fantastical saga focuses on a mother, Geumbok, and her daughter Chunhui, whose experiences combine to form an oblique examination of the development of South Korean society in the years after the Korean War. Geumbok and Chunhui are living through a time of enormous transformations and puzzling contradictions. Geumbok, an ordinary girl from an impoverished village, through a mix of chance and skill, reinvents herself as a successful entrepreneur. She’s almost uncannily capable of grasping the opportunities on offer in an increasingly capitalist environment, while her daughter’s extraordinary size and strength, as well as an inability to speak, marks her out as a victim in South Korea’s increasingly repressive system. Whalegives new meaning to the generation-spanning epic. Cheon expertly inserts metafictional jousts into his stirring prose, sardonically toying with our need for narrative even as he explores his characters’ lives with heartfelt urgency. Wonderfully translated by Kim,Whaleis an intricate work of art with unexpected riches.”— YZ Chin, author of Edge Case

What was the experience of working with Cheon Myeong-kwan like? How closely did you work together? Was it a very collaborative process? Were there any surprising moments during your collaboration, or joyful moments, or challenges? Alina and Laura are old friends whose relationship is based on eschewing procreation as the be all and end all. It’s a perspective that gets increasingly complicated through pregnancy, birth, loss, a growing intimacy with the troubled son of a neighbour, unexpected resilience, the “birthing” process of writing a thesis and gradual drifting apart with a mother.As a lifelong bookworm and a third culture kid, I sort of naturally fell into literary translation. I grew up moving between South Korea and the US and Canada, and the one constant was books. I also worked in independent publishing for a brief time and got to know editors and translators. My advice to aspiring translators is to read widely, particularly in your target language. It’s also important to realise that very few of us are able to translate literature full-time! Even though I’ve been translating for 20 years, I’ve always had a day job. Slimani said the list was a “celebration of the power of language and of authors who wanted to push formal inquiry as far as possible”. Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov, who writes fiction in Russian, is shortlisted for Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv, out at the end of April, translated by Reuben Woolley. Meanwhile Perumal Murugan, who declared himself “dead” as a writer after protests against his work, is longlisted for Pyre, translated from Tamil by Aniruddhan Vasudevan. This was the first book I’ve ever translated where I didn’t reach out to the author during the process. I literally had zero questions for him! It’s funny how Mr. Cheon says he wrote the book as if someone were dictating it to him, because translating it was a similar experience. Something about the narrative and the tone and the characters felt so familiar to me. I was reminded of my grandmother, who told me all kinds of folk tales and stories when I was young, as well as the Korean books I loved growing up. It felt comfortable, like home. Whale is the English-language debut of a beloved and bestselling South Korean author, a born storyteller with a cinematic, darkly humorous, and thoroughly original perspective.

The novel tells the story of Pascal, the messiah of the New World, who will spread the word from one journey to another and from one community to another. A hymn to love, brotherhood and the fight against inequality.

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The Gospel According to the New World starts with the birth of a boy in an “overseas department”, “surrounded by water on all sides”. Pascal, a child of mixed heritage, is born and subsequently abandoned on Easter Sunday. Rumours immediately start spreading that he might be the son of God. It took me a couple of attempts to get going with this one and there was almost a dreamlike ( nightmarish at times) quality to the writing. I didn't always fully understand where the story was going and yet was intrigued and compelled to keep reading. Guembok was fantastic character , her ambition and determination were a joy to read. I want to visit Korea even more now after reading this and had a strong desire to cook fish when reading! A discussion with author Ahn Jung-hyoThe Korean Literature Night (KLN) is a monthly discussion group that explores various themes and topics relating to that month ... Maybe this whole story is a single tale of revenge—who really knows? Did the old crone succeed in getting her revenge? Nobody can answer that; those who remember her curse are no longer of this world. Her story begins long, long ago, when the train first came to Pyeongdae.” Upon publication of the author’s first story, Frank and I (2003), he received the prestigious Munhakdongne New Writer Award. Cheon’s debut novel, Whale, was published the following year. It won the 10th Munhakdongne Novel Award and has become one of the most loved novels in South Korea, where it is regarded as a modern classic.

To explore all the books on the longlist for the International Booker prize 2023 visit guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. She wasn’t obsessed with the whale just because of its size. When she saw the blue whale from the beach, she had glimpsed what eternal life looked like, life that had triumphed against death. That was the moment the fearful small-town girl became enraptured by enormous things. From illiteracy to business tycoon, Geumbok thrills us with her candid vision of a changing world, mirroring in a way the progress of her home country and its cultural changes in the 20th century. I am writing this review a few weeks after finishing the lecture, so the plot progression has become a little mixed up in my memory. Nevertheless, I can state that this was truly the highlight of my summer vacation reading: provocative and original despite the early comparisons I made to Marquez and Rushdie. Cheon Meong-Kwan is a skilled writer who can play with the reader’s emotions in playful, tense or lyrical prose.Love was love only when it burned hot like fire, and hate was hate only when it was frostier than a sheet of ice.”