Whale: SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2023

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I agree here with author Cheon Meong-Kwan: it’s better to aim high and be daring, even if it’s just your debut novel. Update: I read it. It did not win, unfortunately. The other one I thought it was likely to take the honors did. Too bad I dis not enjoy it as much as this one. Amanda Svensson, who is the Swedish translator of Ali Smith’s novels, is longlisted for A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding, a family saga about triplets, translated by Nichola Smalley from Swedish. There has never been a novel like this in Korean literature . . . A novel that's more like reading out loud than reading quietly to oneself; its structure is like that of a folktale. You can feel the oral tradition in the rhythm of the sentences." 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.

Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan, Chi-Young Kim | Waterstones

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.” Luo Guanzhong’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I read this book so many times when I was in school! I don’t remember any other reading experience that was so powerful and overwhelming. I can’t pretend to understand how this book affected my consciousness and sensibilities, but I can’t deny this book’s literary influence on me as a fiction writer, many years later. Whaleis an astounding epic: part multigenerational epic, part mother-daughter saga, imbued with magical realism and a satirical lens on the post-Korean War years. Using a panoply of characters and fantastical elements, Myeong-Kwan explores love and loss, politics and class, desire and family. This book is big, in so many senses of the word.”— Kelsey F., Powell’s Bookstore Think Big! Think of the biggest thing on the planet, and turn it into an epic story of enormous proportions and scope and you will get this whale of a novel.

It is a philosophical exploration about memory and nostalgia, about forgetting and trying to hold on to our pasts while making sense of our present and future. Above all, it is about time – in its fragments and in its perpetuity. The narrative is so unembellished and laced with scathing humour that it has a jarring effect, further facilitated by uneven segments and breaks – much like our thoughts, some fleeting, some resilient. What was the experience of working with the book’s translator, Chi-Young Kim, like? How closely did you work together on the English edition? Did you offer any specific guidance or advice? Were there any surprising moments during your collaboration, or joyful moments, or challenges?

Whale - Cheon Myeong-kwan - Europa Editions UK Whale - Cheon Myeong-kwan - Europa Editions UK

The novel has just two characters, the unnamed narrator and their time travelling friend Gustine. This sparsity reflects the aridity of a demented mind. Together, they create rooms for Alzheimer’s patients. Rooms in which a chunk of their familiar time and memory is preserved to provide them with shelter in a rapidly erasing memory world. I am still reading the novel but I wanted to write a few words about it before the winner is announced Tomorrow. I think the novel has the best chances to win. I loved Boulder more but I am not sure it will win. This one epic, longer and “big” in every way, from the themes explored to the writing style and plot. Author Maryse Condé and The Gospel According to the New World. Courtesy of the International Booker Prize Standing Heavy by GauZ’, translated from Ivoirian by Frank Wynne, is about two generations of Ivoirians trying to make their way as undocumented workers in Paris. Reviewing the book in the Guardian, John Self described it as “inventive and very funny”. 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.Vigdis Hjorth’s Norwegian novel about a mother and child Is Mother Dead is translated by Charlotte Barslund. Susie Mesure in the Guardian said the novel was: “an absorbing study of inner turmoil that is unexpectedly gripping”. Considered a contemporary classic in its native country, this sprawling 20th-century story follows the life of Geumbok, an enterprising young Korean woman from the mountains whose fortunes are emboldened by her potent effect on men and a preternatural business sense. The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. Partners I really liked Geumbok, one of the female protagonists, who had a real entrepreneurial gift. Until, that is, she fell in love with a lovely woman, transitioned to a man, and then transitioned to a drunken load. Geumbok was one shitty mother, too, worse than anything Joy Williams has so far thought up.

Whale by Cheon Myeong-Kwan: 9781953861146

Set largely in the remote village of Pyeongdae, the dreamlike story of Whale is punctuated by satirical references to historical events that mark the seismic social shifts that transformed South Korea into a modern state in the 20th century. There hasn't been a book that has kept me up reading all night, but I spent some waking hours in finishing this one, leaving me so full of awe and hurt. Ahhh! Which all surprises me given this book was released in 2004 in Korea, which is momentous given how conservative it was then (and still is) during that time. did this book have a lot of objectionable stuff in it? yes. but did i lap up this book like it was freaking ice cream? also yes. As I am unfamiliar with the author, I can only take his work at face value and how it felt to me. To me, the violence was a head-on critique of Korea’s misogyny and obesity stigma. And as this book spans generations, the violence against women stood out even more when set against the modernization of Korea’s society. The world was progressing, but why weren’t the people? Is there such a thing as the objective truth? How credible is a story that floats through the world going from mouth to mouth….Here too, we do not have answers. By its very nature, a story contains adjustments and embellishments depending on the perspective of the person telling it, depending on the listener's convenience, depending on the storyteller's skills. Reader, you will believe what you want to believe. That's all there is to it.A few days after the fire, government investigators arrived. They were reminded of the horrendous scenes in the war's immediate aftermath, when entire cities vanished in flames. Pyungdae, once flourishing, was now a city of death. Smoke still rose from ruined heaps of former buildings, and though it had not completely collapsed, the ashen exterior of the theater showed just how horrifyingly intense the fire had been. Pungent smoke blanketed the town and the air quivered with the smell of burnt flesh and rotting corpses. Wails emanated from every house and scorched, unburied bodies were strewn in the streets, each attracting swarms of flies. The investigators covered their eyes and ears, confronted with the most hideous scene they had ever witnessed. Whale gives 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, Whale is an intricate work of art with unexpected riches."

The 2023 International Booker prize shortlist – review

I may not have understood everything that this novel was trying to satirize, but I thoroughly enjoyed the bonkers story that was presented to me. I didn’t want to put it down; I just had to know where it was going. 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. This same sensation animates Rosalind Harvey’s delicate but enthrallingly tense translation of Guadalupe Nettel’s fourth novel: an exploration of maternity, loss and refusal. 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

Geumbok's daughter is Chunhui. She's the whale-like, autistic- y, mute girl who talks to the dead or alive elephant. We like her. We don't want bad things to happen to her. Bad things happen to her. We don't know what her thoughts were and we don't know what kind of life she desired. She was different, and she lived in isolation because of that. It is the story of a mother and a daughter. The mother, Geumbok, is from a remote mountain village, and throughout the first part of the book her fortunes rise, then fall, and ultimately rise again, until eventually she builds her own movie theatre in the shape of a whale. The image of a very large woman was the genesis of this novel. I was drawn to the tragedy of her enormous corporeality and began plotting out the story. I recently watched Darren Aronofsky’s film featuring a 272-kilogram man, and I was surprised to learn that the film’s title was also The Whale; it too symbolizes massive physicality and loneliness. What follows is Pascal’s journey to himself. He travels the earth looking for his biological father and grapples with questions about his own purpose – a journey that closely mirrors that of Jesus in the New Testament.