Whale: SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2023

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There's a huge emphasis on female strength and power throughout and, while there are some memorable and loveable male characters, many of the men featuring throughout the novel lack even the basic dignity of a name, and instead are referred to as the fishmonger, the lumberjack, the truck driver, and so on. An inter-generational tale of the struggle to survive, with some serious observations on Korean society, some may find this a bit too much, but I found myself utterly immersed in the characters and the setting. 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. She looked over the other side of the tracks at Pyeongdae, far away, below the foot of the mountain.

She touched her foot on the hot tracks; the searing pain that shot from the tip of her foot through her whole body felt refreshing. People watched helplessly as the theater burned, the theater built through one woman’s grit; the adjacent buildings went up in flames. The list, said French Moroccan novelist and chair of judges Leïla Slimani, “celebrates the variety and diversity of literary production today”. It compels us to question our concepts of identity: not just national, individual, societal, but also historical and temporal. an affecting theme emerges about the sins of mothers, while philosophical notions broach the comic .Replete with unexpected surprises and a wicked sense of humor,Whaleis a riveting, rollicking, combination of adventure and satire of epic saga proportions by arguably one of the most original literary talents in international literature.

If you are interested in Korean literature or fiction in general, this is a perfect opportunity to enjoy a discussion about this essential book with the author Cheon and his translator Chi-Young Kim. Thank you Netgalley and Europa editions for the opportunity of reading an advanced copy of this book and for allowing me to review it.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. A much shorter translation process can be found in Time Shelter, which translator Angela Rodel began work on before Georgi Gospodinov had even finished writing the book in its original language, Bulgarian.

With each step, blood oozed from her big toe, where the nail had ripped off, staining the parched red-clay ground. Central to the story, set in Martinique, is adopted orphan Pascal, a beautiful daydreamer who is believed to be a new saviour: “Our Father perhaps had two sons. It’s not always easy to see whether the creaky descriptions of women – Geumbok’s “exceptionally wide rump”, Chunhui being “fat and unattractive, so unlike her mother” – are a satire of sexist attitudes or an enactment of them (Cheong cites Updike and Bukowski as key influences). I think readers who wish to give a chance to this novel should really take seriously what the summary says: "brimming with surprises and wicked humour, Whale is an adventure-satire of epic proportions". 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.

On the contrary, if the novel has a fault it’s that too much happens too quickly, but it’s highly entertaining. What is remarkable in his narrative is that despite the tidal wave of misfortunes that engulf the characters it is not a victim narrative, nor one that blames the barbarians at the gate. Using the story and observations of an undocumented Ivorian migrant in Paris, it digs into the rich, complex and often fraught relationship between France and its former African colonies. The publication of Whale changed my life, and it feels like Whale is still a propulsive force in my life.